Super Bowl – The phenomenal advertising statistics!
- 114.4m viewers
- $300m total advertising spend
- 28.4m tweets
- $4.5m for a 30 second advert
- 118m viewers for the half time show
- 3.4 million tweets regarding Katy Perry’s half time show – a 52% increase on last year!
This year’s Super Bowl was the most watched TV show in US history with 114.4m viewers. It is no wonder, then, that a 30-second ad slot during the programme cost $4.5m. But is it really worth this high price tag? Are there better ways to advertise, and better ways to make the most of the Super Bowl?
The total spending for ads during the Super Bowl was around $300m. The most negatively viewed ad was Nationwide’s ad featuring a young child dying from a preventable household accident. The inclusion of more serious ads in the Super Bowl met with mixed reviews, and mixed opinions on whether or not the ads should stick with a light-hearted theme or not. Whilst Nationwide’s ad seemed to be viewed poorly, an ad re-enacting a 911 call about domestic violence was met with much more positive reviews.
There were 28.4m tweets about the Super Bowl, with P&G’s #LikeAGirl campaign being the most discussed ad on social media and McDonalds having the top tweet when they offered the chance to win a Lexus. In our social media-dominated world, it is important that brands consider cross channel links when advertising, in order to maximise brand awareness.
The half time show, sponsored for a third consecutive year by PepsiCo, gained 118.5m viewers – more than the Super Bowl itself. Katy Perry’s halftime show at this year’s Super Bowl received 3.4 million tweets, which was a 52% increase over last year’s halftime show featuring Bruno Mars.
But how useful is it to have an ad during the Super Bowl? While your ad may be shown to millions of viewers, is it worth the high price? It works out at around 4 cents per person, which sounds cost effective, but very few of those impressions will be useful in reality. For example, a large number of people will not be paying attention – they may be out of the room, on the phone, talking to someone, making food, and so on. Even of the few who see the ad, most of them will forget the ad as soon as it has finished. With so many ads being shown during the Super Bowl, only a few can stay in the mind of viewers. Even those few ads will fade from the minds of the viewership within a few days or at best a few weeks. Advertising during the Super Bowl is a temporary thing, and in the long run will do little to raise brand awareness.
The model that advertisers seem to be aiming for is trying to match the success of an Apple advert shown during the Super Bowl. This ad, shown in 1984, was a one off advert shown only during the Super Bowl, and worked out as very effective advertising for Apple. The trouble with this idea is that the world has changed since then. Advertising has increased in prominence by a large factor; our world is filled with adverts. Trying to fight your way through with one individual advert will not work anymore. There are too many other companies trying to get their adverts known too. With so much competition, a singular ad will not work. Instead, brands must build awareness with repeated adverts and constant reminders to their audience.
With the lack of targeting available in Super Bowl adverts (even more so than television in general), a lot of money is lost on advertising to the wrong people. So how can this be avoided? One major way to gain advertising with a Super Bowl link without paying for an extortionate ad slot is in-store adverts. Many shops have Super Bowl displays of related products before the Super Bowl, such as beer and crisps. A vast amount is spent on food and drinks for the Super Bowl, so a great way to capitalise on the Super Bowl is to convert customers in-store. This can also be done in online stores by having Super Bowl creatives on the website and display adverts relating to the Super Bowl. Using this method will create a far more cost effective use of advertising, while still capitalising on the Super Bowl and utilising targeting techniques, without having to pay $4.5m for a 30 second advert.