Advertisers\u00a0shelled out\u00a0up to $8 million for a spot during Super Bowl 59. Ad industry executives still consider the price tag worth it, and argue it\u2019s even a bang for their buck.<\/p>\n
The NFL\u2019s championship game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs will air this year on\u00a0Fox Corp.\u2019s\u00a0broadcast network, as well as on Fox\u2019s\u00a0free streamer\u00a0Tubi. It\u2019ll likely be the biggest audience watching live television at the same time this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe scale and buzz factor still delivers a punch,\u201d said Amy Leifer, DirecTV\u2019s chief advertising sales officer. \u201cWhere else can you get 100 million viewers at once, right? Especially in this fragmented landscape \u2026 there\u2019s virtually few places you can go to get that type of scale.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year more than 123 million people tuned into the Super Bowl. The 2024 game racked up estimated ad revenue of about $550 million for in-game placements, according to GroupM,\u00a0WPP\u2019s media investment group.<\/p>\n
While advertisers have been spending more on digital, social media and streaming platforms, traditional TV is still considered the most \u201ceffective\u201d form of advertising, meaning it has the biggest impact and results for brands due to the large audiences watching at once.<\/p>\n
The ad market for traditional TV programming has slowed down as the cable bundle\u00a0bleeds\u00a0customers. Still, media companies with rights to live sports \u2014 as well as news and other live programming like awards shows \u2014 are able to nab a bigger chunk of ad dollars than peers without sports.<\/p>\n
While it appears the ad market is stabilizing after a slowdown, networks and streamers with sports are sure to\u00a0fare better\u00a0than those without this year.<\/p>\n
Sports have\u00a0taken over\u00a0the conversation at the advertising industry\u2019s Upfronts presentations each spring, when media companies make their pitch to advertisers. Fox sold most of the ad inventory for this year\u2019s Super Bowl during its Upfront last spring, CNBC previously reported.<\/p>\n
The Super Bowl remains about three times as effective as the average primetime programming for advertisers, according to EDO, an advertising data company. The NFL\u2019s big game last year was 224% more effective than average primetime programming, the data firm said.<\/p>\n
EDO likened the audience and engagement that comes with a Super Bowl game to an advertiser buying hundreds of spots on primetime. Based on last year\u2019s Super Bowl audience, EDO equated one ad during the big game to roughly 450 spots during primetime programming in terms of viewer engagement.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a fair and rational price based on our data, which is that this has been one of the most consistent performers over time,\u201d said Kevin Krim, CEO of EDO. \u201cAnd there\u2019s room for the price to go up based on our data. But the important thing is, it matters a ton how a brand executes on their creative idea.\u201d<\/p>\n
For instance, when brands launch a new product during a Super Bowl commercial, consumers continue to engage with the brand via online searches or app visits even after the Super Bowl ad first aired, said Krim. He noted three recent brand launches during Super Bowl commercials \u2014 automaker Kia launching the EV6 in 2022, and Reese\u2019s unveiling its Big Caramel Cup and Popeye\u2019s promoting its new wings in 2024 \u2014 which led to a lift in engagement for each brand when the ads aired thereafter.<\/p>\n
Even localized ads that are sold at a lower cost than national ads and only shown in certain markets experience a Super Bowl lift. Zeam, a hyperlocal streaming platform, aired a spot starring actor John Stamos in select markets last year.<\/p>\n
The app had \u201cmillions of downloads\u201d following the commercial, said Jack Perry, CEO of Zeam Media.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was good enough for us, and it\u2019s not cheap for us to buy those available spots. There\u2019s a very limited number of local spots during the game,\u201d said Perry.<\/p>\n
Zeam will run another commercial with Stamos this year.<\/p>\n
The placement of a commercial during the game, sometimes as specific as what time during a certain quarter the ad is shown, can make a difference, too, according to Andre Banks, founder and CEO of NewWorld, an ad data firm.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a brand wants to drive high-impact results, they must align their spots with when their target audience is most engaged, not the spot that receives higher viewership,\u201d said Banks.<\/p>\n
He noted a portion of the Super Bowl audience each year tunes in specifically for the Halftime show, which this year features rapper Kendrick Lamar, and then turns their attentions away once the moment passes.<\/p>\n
Banks also noted that social media plays a big role during the Super Bowl, with viewers turning to varying tech platforms during the game. Social media should be key for advertisers during the Super Bowl, too, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith so many viewers scrolling on social channels during the game, there\u2019s also a massive opportunity for brands to optimize for second-screen engagement,\u201d Banks added.<\/p>\n
Ad spending on tech and social media platforms far eclipses traditional TV. GroupM estimates that ad revenue for \u201cpure-play digital,\u201d which excludes digital extensions of media companies like streaming, will grow 10% to $813.3 billion globally in 2025. By comparison, TV ad spend is expected to grow nearly 2% to $169.1 billion. Media companies have even recently\u00a0come together\u00a0to launch an ad platform with the aim of taking back share from tech players.<\/p>\n
Some say brands\u2019 focus on spending big on the Super Bowl and the idea that traditional TV is the most effective form of advertising may lie in the past.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t necessarily think when someone says it\u2019s still the most effective, that\u2019s what it is. I think what people are saying is it\u2019s the only place left where there is a really large, captive broadcast audience watching something,\u201d said Shoshana Winter, CEO of Converge, a performance marketing agency. \u201cWhen it comes to this particular thing, we are holding on hard and fast.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Advertisers\u00a0shelled out\u00a0up to $8 million for a spot during Super Bowl 59. Ad industry executives still consider the price tag worth it, and argue it\u2019s even a bang for their buck. The NFL\u2019s championship game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs will air this year on\u00a0Fox Corp.\u2019s\u00a0broadcast network, as well as on Fox\u2019s\u00a0free […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}