Super Bowl ads over the years, is it worth it for marketers?

Big events like this past weekend's Super Bowl have great stakes not just for the players and their teams but for the advertisers. Quite honestly, watching the ads have become it's own event. Just go on Twitter during the game and see what's still trending. What was buzzing? Chance the Rapper with Backstreet Boys and Doritos, Game of Thrones Bud Light, Microsoft Xbox Accessible Controller, and OMG, the Hula and The Handmaid's Tale. But what does it all translate to for the advertisers?

Steve Mast is the Chief Innovation Officer behind the automated market research platform Methodify, which is powered by the innovative minds of Delvinia, a proudly-Canadian technology scale-up founded in 1998. We checked in with Mast to gain some insight into the brands who spend millions on unforgettable Super Bowl spots, celebrity endorsements and taking BIG risks in hopes of connecting with their audience. 

Big games like the past Super Bowl have great advertiser stakes, can you give us an idea of what kind of spend brands are looking at during such a high profile event?

a. Kantar Media tracks ad spending. In the past 10 years 2008: $2.7 million to 2018: 5.2 million

b. The average cost of a :30 ad in Super Bowl LII climbed to a record $5.235 million, with overall spend totaling $482 million, second only to the previous year’s game which went into overtime.

c. Changes in advertiser strategies, including experimenting with shorter ad lengths and leveraging social media to get the most from their campaigns.

What are some of the most memorable Super Bowl ads for you? and why?

• Apple 1984.  Kick started the SuperBowl ad
• Oreo Cookie not really a SuperBowl ad – Tweet (Lights Out) … 2013 – changed everything.  We now have huge social media war rooms during the SuperBowl

What about some marketer faux-pas? any stand outs? and what could they have done differently?

Hits: VW "The Force" or TIDE: It’s a Tide Ad

Misses: Go-Daddy was widely panned by experts, Last years Dodge RAM spot that used Martin Luther King speech

Also, everyone remembers Apples 1984 … no one remembers. Macintosh "Lemmings" (1985)

 We did a quick pre-super bowl ad test with our Methodify platform to see what brands people remember the most from the past:

BRANDS

i. 65 Budweiser/Bud Light (which is the largest spender for 37 years)

ii. 38 Doritos

iii. 30 Pepsi

iv. 13 Coke

v. 8 GoDaddy (crazy ads, hard to forget… experts deem it one of the worse … consumers remembers )

vi. 6 Ford

Which is interesting as Auto, Movies, Food (excluding Candy) tend to be the biggest spenders, but no one remembers the Movie Ads and Auto brands are lagging behind.

We put 3 big Brands ads head to head … Budweiser, Pringles and Pepsi

Bud wins for likability … Its and Dogs and Horses … people love the dogs.

But last in likability was the Pepsi spot which feature celebrities (Cardi B and Steve Carell). People are split between the celebrities. They either love them or hate them.  Picking the right celebrity is tricky business these days and it comes back to marketing 101 …know your target market.

We look forward to the ads, but there's marketing laden everywhere throughout large broadcasted events not just the Super Bowl. How has technology changed the way we are viewing ads and the way marketers are trying to target audiences more than ever before?

a. Bringing the consumer into the process at every stage of the production process

      i. … there are picking the celebrity

      ii. … testing concepts

      iii. … even the final ad

b. Typically the process is big idea (might be tested) then move into development of the ad and then placement … no time or money to test.

c. Technology platformers like our Methodify allow marketers to get feedback from real consumers at any time during the PR.

What are some innovations impacting this space?

What Matters most to Marketers (Brands)

• Share-able (send to friends, did you see this?)
• Talk-able (did you watch that?)
• Memorable (again most important)

For years now mix has been: Celebrities and Humor …and now Tech is common 

The past few years … Swapping HUMOR for PURPOSE and TECH for INNOVATIVE execution.

SWAP Humor with Purpose

“Humor” with “Cause” (trying to connect with younger audiences). IE: Budweiser’s windmill ad this year OR Last year the breakthrough ad was Toyota’s “Good Odds”. But it can go sideways. Last year Chrysler used a Martin Luther Kings speech for a RAM truck ad which drew criticism.

SWAP TECH with Innovative

Amazon’s new Alex spot (Beta Testing Program) had all three:

• Featured celebrities (Harrison Ford, Forest Whitaker)
• It was testing new Alexa technologies—including a toothbrush, dog collar and hot tub—and why they didn’t work – which was really funny!

This is the 4^th consecutive year Alexa has starred in Amazon’s Super Bowl ads. The tradition began with Alec Baldwin’s #BaldwinBowl in 2016. 

Tech continues to be a big focus across all industries: Audi’s new all Electric by 2025, Pringles Stackable featuring Alex, Mercedes new In-car Voice System …the list goes on and on.

But there is a rise of INNOVATIVE executions

Take Skittles this year … who is known to do some pretty interesting things … last year they produce a 60sec spot with David Schwimmer  premiering on Super Bowl Sunday. This year … they produced the Skittles The Broadway Musical: Advertising Ruins Everything … its a one-time-show, live 30-minute show, performed in the heart of Times Square in a 1,500 seat Broadway theater. The show takes an absurdly self-reflective look at consumerism and the ever-increasing pervasiveness of brand advertising in our lives.

BUT I love what Northgate SuperMarket in California - they found a pretty clever way to insert itself into the Super Bowl ad insanity without spending millions. Northgate sets up some of the biggest Super Bowl ads and teasers with a preemptive message about where you can find the products being advertised.

Hula … the EGG … for 2 weeks leading up to the SuperBowl the egg was cracking.