One of the biggest sporting events of the year is upon us this weekend, with the Seattle Seahawks taking on the New England Patriots in Superbowl XL.
While the game and the halftime show are spectacles in and of themselves, the commercials are nearly as famous — like the iconic Budweiser Clydesdales, for instance.
But are Super Bowl ads effective enough to warrant the huge price tags?
KERA's Ron Corning spoke with Dr. Yilun (Ivan) Li, University of Texas at Dallas marketing professor, about why brands still pay millions of dollars for an ad spot during the big game.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity:
I'm sort of fascinated at this notion that the Super Bowl still remains the holy grail for advertising. What's at play here?
Well, the Super Bowl is the most watched television program in the United States and advertisers care about that massive reach. It's sort of one of the only monocultural events left where everyone is watching.
It's also predominantly watched live, so there's no fast-forwarding through the commercials. Does that put a particular pressure on advertisers then to produce a commercial that tells a story, has a cliffhanger, lures them in, leaves them with something... whether it's something to laugh at, something to cry at?
So, my colleagues over at University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, they've actually looked into the trends that have been appearing in these Super Bowl ads. They found that the main trends are star power, so using celebrities that people recognize. Animals are actually a big one, too. Last year, Budweiser's ad was the highest rated on USA Today's ad meter. They also use nostalgia, these companies want to tug at your heartstrings and bring you back to the good old times, right?
I also know 40% of the ads we'll see will be from companies that have never advertised before. That means that 60% of these companies are brands that many of us already know of. I've often wondered why Pepsi, for example, would spend the kind of money they would spend on a Super Bowl ad when everybody knows what Pepsi is? Is that a waste of money for them? What are they gaining from it?
This is a really interesting observation. Pepsi and Budweiser have historically always advertised at the Super Bowl and they don't need the brand recognition from the nearly 128 million people watching, right? A lot of these viewers already know what Pepsi and Budweiser is.
What research from Stanford University has suggested is that Super Bowl ads generate associations between brands and future sports viewership occasions. For example, a legacy brand that advertises at the Super Bowl today will see effects in post-Super Bowl sporting events. So, you [may] see increased consumption of Budweiser during March Madness and this is why these brands decide to advertise at the Super Bowl, because they want the consumer to form these associations between that brand and sporting events.
As far as Texas brands, it looks like we can expect a national commercial from Toyota at the Super Bowl and a local commercial from HEB. Anything you're looking forward to in particular based on what you've seen preliminarily rolling out?
There is discussion about how a lot of tech firms have purchased one of these expensive advertisements for the Super Bowl and it's always interesting to me how tech firms try to reach the consumer, right? OpenAI is rumored to have purchased a Super Bowl ad. How do they create an advertisement that gets to the consumer? It remains to be seen but it's interesting to see how these tech firms or these newer brands will adapt to the advertising models that already exist for the Super Bowl.
Ron Corning is a host at KERA. Got a tip? Email Ron at rcorning@kera.org.
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