Every year the Super Bowl becomes the main event of U.S. sports and big business. While millions of viewers world wild are mainly watching to see who wins the game, big businesses are watching to see how well their advertisement will do. This years Super Bowl managed to draw 112 million viewers to the game; becoming the 3rd most watched show in television history. A well placed commercial or ad can do wonders for a businesses future.
Companies that dive into buying commercial space for the event typically use it as a platform to launch a new product or service. Apple in 1984 were able to capture huge attention from their commercial that introduced the Macintosh computer.
In this years Super Bowl commercial, Coinbase used their 30-sec time slot to produce a moving QR code that allowed whoever scanned the code to opt in to win either $3 million or sign-up to get $15. Ultimately, the Coinbase site crashed from the increased traffic.
Super Bowls ads may or may not generate immediate return on a businesses investment, but it does provide the much needed exposure companies look for. Most super bowl ads and sponsors are from companies like Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Nike, Adidas, or Ford releasing new products or providing fans with nostalgia of the past.
A. Guttmann of Statista wrote ” Advertisers had to pay an average of 6.5 million U.S. dollars” for a 30 second commercial set. That number has steadily increased over the years as viewership of the big game has gone up. With that being said, last years 2021 Super Bowl advertising generated about 485 million U.S. dollars; more than doubling that of 2009.
Brands awareness from the game generated about 170 million dollars for the partners of the NFL per. Hive and Elevated Sports Ventures. Again, no one knows exactly if the money invested into the Super Bowl ads will give immediate return. One thing is for sure, the ads allow for conversations to be had about the products or brands. A company that was not previously considered a big player in the media space has a possibility of going viral on social media just make creating the right ad.
Again, advertising is a two way street. A good ad can bold well for a company, but a bad one can tarnish the image of a company. Rob Siltanen, founder and chief creative officer of Siltanen & Partners, a Los Angeles-based advertising agency in a 2017 article views the super bowl as a safe play. “The PR value and “replay value” of a great Super Bowl spot alone can be worth the game’s high media cost.” He referenced the 2012 and 2013 Sketcher ads that gave more return than the price paid for the ad spot.
But like Rob Siltanen mentioned, the super bowl isn’t for every brand. If you don’t like scrutiny or polls rating your commercials performance come Monday, then the Super Bowl isn’t for you.