The Super Bowl is an American pastime that brings everyone together. Even non-sports fans can unite with their football-obsessed friends and enjoy a good party with wings, beer and dip; watching the latest blunder at the half-time show; and of course, marvel over the advertisements from brands that spend $5.2M for a 30 second snippet on the big day. But in the last decade, Super Bowl Sunday doesn’t just happen on Sunday. It starts the week before as the advertisements begin rolling out online. As a non-sports fan myself, I have been fascinated as to how this came to be. So, I did some digging.
What does marketing at the Super Bowl really mean for companies and their brands? What is the return on investment? And why the heck do ads come out a week before game day? Well according to the LA Times, it started a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. See where I’m going with this? Apparently the first advertisement to go digital before game-day was a 2011 Volkswagen spot featuring none other than the iconic Darth Vader from Star Wars. Or at least his mini-me version, in which a young boy dressed as the infamous galactic villain believes he can use The Force on his unassuming family car, meanwhile the car is turned on by his dad inside.
While the ad’s success can be attributed to important marketing beats such as relevance to the famous film saga and providing some newness for consumers to get excited about (the new car was coming out next year) its greatest claim to fame is that the ad hit 50M views before Super Bowl Sunday 2011, thus sparking the firestorm of advertisements we see rolled out every year since (Millward Brown Knowledge Points, 2006).
And of course, this makes perfect sense. Why not get more of your ROI when you are paying millions for the ad spot and a million or more to create the ad? Not to mention paying royalties on commercials of this grandeur that pay hefty music fees (like $750,000 for one song synch, ouch) and collaborate with other brands and multiple celebrities.
But what if viral Super Bowl ads online are actually hurting the big game-day viewership? The most viewers the Super Bowl ever had was in 2015 with 114.4M tune-ins, however, it has steadily decreased over the last five years to 104M in 2018 and just 98.2M in 2019. Is the Super Bowl losing their non-sports-based fans to the internet, where they can get their commercial-fix without having to watch the ball passes and tackling in between? Considering the top ad of SB 2019 was a clever Amazon Echo commercial (coincidentally featuring another Star Wars icon) accumulating 45.9M online views just days after, plus the 98.2M on game-day, places Amazon with 29.7M extra views above the NFL’s peak in 2015. So, while advertisers are getting smarter returns on their game-day investments, the actual game itself might be suffering. Leading this non-sports fan to think, who’s really in charge of Super Bowl’s success?
Lastly, looking to the future of Super Bowl advertising, is it any wonder why marketers have not yet turned to social media tie-ins to integrate their campaigns and push viewership even further? It looks like this year might take that next step with the 2020 Doritos ad featuring the hashtag #CoolRanchDance and a celebrity dance battle, with the hopes of prompting a new viral sensation and social media challenge akin to #Planking, #TheHarlemShake, or the noteworthy #IceBucketChallenge. As a personal fan of Doritos, I might have to come up with a dance myself; possibly a nacho cheese samba?
Whether you’re a fan of the football, the commercials, the wings, or all three, I wish you a Happy Super Bowl 2020!
References
AnthonyNetwork. (2011, February 3). Super Bowl XLV – Darth Vader in Volkswagen TV Spot. YouTube. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGZNocni6zE
Calfas, J. (2019, February 3). Here’s How Much It Costs to Buy a Commercial During Super Bowl 2019. Money. Retrieved from https://money.com/super-bowl-2019-commercial-ad-costs/
Granados, N. (2019, February 8). 2019 Super Bowl Ads Were Viewed Massively Online Before And After The Game. Forbes. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/nelsongranados/2019/02/08/2019-super-bowl-ads-were-viewed-massively-online-before-and-after-the-game/#7f6929fa41b0
Hamedy, S. & James, M. (2015, February 1). Why are Super Bowl ads posted online early? Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-super-bowl-why-ads-get-posted-online-early-20150201-story.html
Millward Brown Knowledge Points. (2006). What makes an ad persuasive? Retrieved from file:///Users/tavom002/Downloads/Brown,%202006%20What_makes_an_ad_persuasive.pdf
“Not Everything Makes the Cut”. (2019). 2019 Super Bowl Commercials: Amazon Echo. CBSsports.com. Retrieved from https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/video/2019-super-bowl-commercials-amazon-echo/
Sourcestaff (2018, February 5). The Source. SYNC LICENSING FOR MUSIC ARTISTS THE BIG WINNER AT 52ND SUPER BOWL. Retrieved from https://thesource.com/2018/02/05/sync-licensing-music-artists-big-winner-52nd-super-bowl/
Su, R & McDowell, E. (2020, January 31). How Super Bowl ad costs have skyrocketed over the years. Business Insider. Retrieved from https://www.businessinsider.com/super-bowl-ad-price-cost-2017-2
Wohl, J. (2020, January 29). Lil Nas X Challenges Sam Elliot to a Dance Battle in Doritos’ Super Bowl Ad. Adage. Retrieved from https://adage.com/article/special-report-super-bowl/lil-nas-x-challenges-sam-elliott-dance-battle-doritos-super-bowl-ad/2231746?CSAuthResp=1%3A%3A5259476%3A0%3A24%3Asuccess%3A47592E18FC3017D9F5F9E00ECCA98A9B
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