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For many advertisers, $7 million for 30 seconds at the Super Bowl is worth the price of admission as you can advertise your brand to a large audience, many of whom are as engaged with the ads as they are with the actual game and that, in recent years. , has been divided almost equally between men and women according to Nielsen data.
But that high cost is often just a starting point, especially since many brands want more time.
“It’s very rare that you buy a 30-second ad,” said one media executive. This person said that the media cost of ads is typically $15 million for a 60-second ad and $22 million for a 90-second ad.
Some deep-pocketed brands seem to make that decision reflexively.
“We never doubted that we would get back in the game,” Todd Allen, Bud Light’s senior vice president of marketing, told Business Insider.
Bud Light will air a one-minute ad this year. Its parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev, has consistently invested around $7.5 billion annually in global marketing.
An investment in the Super Bowl is also “almost automatic” for TurboTax because the game coincides with tax time, the company’s peak season, said Nick Soukas, the company’s senior vice president of marketing. TurboTax will run a 45-second ad during the Super Bowl, as well as 30-second ads before and after the game.
But players who reach the Super Bowl for the first time, like Candy Brand Nerdswhich is ending nearly four years of explosive sales growth, are betting big that the investment will be a major business accelerator.
The great creative risk
Creativity is the deciding factor for a Super Bowl ad, the most important factor that will justify the investment by entrenching the brand in the national zeitgeist.
On average, producing ad creative for the Super Bowl is 50% to 60% more expensive than a regular ad, due to the increased costs of recruiting top celebrity talent, a top director, and purchasing music licenses. said Melissa Tifrere. head of integrated production at Havas New York.
But there’s still no guarantee that the money will lead to a successful ad.
“Everyone knows that if you put horses, dogs and kids in your ad, you’re going to do well,” said Joe Staples, executive creative director at advertising agency Mother. “But it may not be differentiating and people may not remember what you’re there for.”
European baker Lindt is investing in a Super Bowl ad for the first time this year because it reached 30% penetration in the U.S. and has its sights set on accelerating that growth, Lindt USA CEO told BI. Ana Dominguez. The company worked with its agency Gray to create an ad that justified that investment—that is, one that entertained viewers and ensured they remembered Lindt.
“We needed creative that broke up the Super Bowl vibe, but it also had to be an ad that conveyed what our brand was about,” he said.
Investment must continue even after the initial airing of the Super Bowl ad to maximize its potential. Online marketplace Rakuten invested in a Super Bowl ad in 2022 and 2023, but won’t do so this year as its strategy has shifted from generating broad awareness to targeting millennial women.
The company’s Super Bowl strategy evolved a lot between those two years. Following its 2023 Super Bowl ad that paid homage to the hit ’90s movie “Clueless,” Rakuten continued to position itself as a fashion marketplace by partnering with New York Fashion Week.
“That’s the most important thing: It’s bigger than just the ad,” said Vicki McRae, senior vice president of marketing and creative at Rakuten. “The first time, we weren’t as sophisticated about it and we didn’t have as many additional stories to tell.”
Regardless of the risks, Super Bowl advertisers have the opportunity to propel their business to new heights. Television measurement firm EDO found that last year, consumers were 60% more likely to engage with Super Bowl advertisers compared to NFL regular-season advertisers, and 179% more likely to interact with them compared to ads that aired during prime time.
And McRae said that thanks to the two ads, awareness of Rakuten is “at an all-time high.”
Sofia Colucci, chief marketing officer at Molson Coors, told BI that after the brand returned to the Super Bowl last year for the first time in 33 years, “Coors Light was the fastest growing share of total beer.” .