Forget the big game. The biggest competition is in the commercial breaks

Historically, the automotive industry and web-based, television, radio, print & motion pictures have been the biggest spenders on Super Bowl advertising by industry, followed by finance in third place. From the sporting goods world, one brand with a particular success story is Skechers. Rob Siltanen, founder and chief creative officer of Siltanen & Partners, a Los Angeles-based advertising agency, discussed the impact of the 2012 and 2013 Skechers Super Bowl ad spots in Forbes in 2014.

“The fun, engaging 30-second spots ranked among the highest in consumer likability polls, and they were featured on shows ranging from Good Morning America and The Colbert Report to The Tonight Show. The spots were also replayed in their entirety on over 200 news stations across the country, were reported on by hundreds of newspapers, were shown and written about on hundreds of blogs, discussed on the radio, and received millions of YouTube hits.  The value of the PR garnered from these spots easily quadrupled the actual Super Bowl media cost.”

Siltanen added that whilst not all of the footwear brand’s subsequent growth could be attributed to the Super Bowl adverts, “there’s no denying that having the right Super Bowl advertising effort served as a [lightning] rod for the entire Skechers brand.”

Hot on the heels of its record breaking quarter, Skechers did indeed run a campaign at this year’s Super Bowl featuring Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart. The ad already has over 11 million views on YouTube.

For many viewers the ad is the event

Super Bowl commercials are an event in and of themselves. A 2020 survey, also by Statista, revealed that 79 percent of adult viewers in the U.S. see the commercials as entertainment, with almost 71 percent stating they enjoyed watching the commercials. According to Sports MONITOR data, two-thirds of all Americans planned to tune in to the 2023 game, but 25 percent of Super Bowl viewers said they expect to pay more attention to the ads than the game itself.

Viewers can expect to see around 70 commercials, or around 40-50 minutes in advertising during the game itself (excluding pre- and post-game shows), depending on the year. 2023 included 51 adverts.

Some of the brands who advertised at the 2023 Super Bowl include:

• Uber
• Pepsi Zero
• Bud Light
• GM and Netflix
• Pop Corners 
• Crown Royal
• Dunkin
• Kia
• T-Mobile
• Squarespace

But is this huge expenditure worth it?

According to Kantar’s Super Bowl LVI Ad Effectiveness Report, the 2022 Super Bowl ads delivered an average ROI of $4.60 per dollar spent, with ads for T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, Disney+, Sam’s Club and General Motors achieving the best results. Beer ads also deliver a positive ROI.

Summarizing her academic research on the topic¹ on the University of Minnesota website, assistant professor Linli Xu Ph.D. states: “Overall, Super Bowl ads bring a big boost in word-of-mouth impressions, but it’s short-lived. If a company is looking to generate a buzz, the Super Bowl might be a good place to do it.”

She points to a 16 percent increase in word-of-mouth activity (on- and offline) for around a month after the Super Bowl, peaking at 22 percent the week after the sporting event. For online word-of-mouth activity, the impact is starker: Around 68 percent on the day of the Super Bowl. But this only lasts for a few days.

What is interesting to note about Xu’s research is that it suggests the categories with the largest implied elasticities of total word-of-mouth to TV advertising are Sports and Hobbies, followed by Media and Entertainment, and Telecommunications.

So what makes a good Super Bowl commercial?

It shouldn’t be surprising that an important factor in success is one that is increasingly important to consumers: Diversity, equality and inclusion.

According to Kantar’s Super Bowl Creative Evolution – DEI in the Big Game 2023 Report, 29 percent of respondents claim they would “stop using brands that do not promote inclusion and diversity during the Super Bowl.” According to additional Kantar research, in 2022, 89 percent of ads featured one or more underrepresented group. 40 percent of ads had three or more groups represented. However, LGBTQ+ and people with disabilities are still underrepresented in lead roles.

Successful Super Bowl commercials also have to have a longevity beyond their short slot. They have to create a buzz, which means those who missed out will want to catch up, and those who enjoyed an advert the first time will want to watch it again – for example, on streaming platform YouTube. Commercials from the 2019 Super Bowl totaled 641,000 watch-hours on YouTube, according to Statista.

More than just a commercial

Ciro Sarmiento, chief creative officer for Saatchi & Saatchi, said in an interview with The Guardian that the best ads also have to be an idea that lives beyond the TV. This can include social media campaigns, hooks and teasers. For example, detergent company Downy – which also ran an ad during this year’s Super Bowl – claims that its scent-boosting product freshens clothes for 12 weeks. Its ad teaser premiered exactly 12 weeks before the full commercial at the Super Bowl.

Likewise, Dalton Dorné, CMO at marketing firm Tinuiti, writes in Forbes: “The second screen in your pocket has arguably become even more important than that big screen on the wall of your living room, with people sharing from before kickoff until the champagne flows in the locker room. It’s sloppy marketing to spend all that money and then fail to connect it to a digital activation in the span leading up to the Big Day and in the year following it.”

Dorné cites the importance of amplifying brand message through media that builds a strong SEO foundation and utilizing partnerships with influencers before and after.

Big brands and big sporting names

Aside from an advert for the NFL itself and the Skechers advert, in 2023 there were no commercials from sporting goods brands (unlike 2022, which featured ads for home gym, Tonal, and gym and fitness club, Planet Fitness). However, with the majority of Super Bowl adverts including an A-list celebrity, the sporting world was represented via some well-known faces.

Serena Wiliams featured in two Super Bowl commercials this year (for the French cognac, Rémy Martin, and for beer brand, Michelob). And although he didn’t appear in a commercial, Michael Jordan – or his shoes – was another unexpected hit. Air, a new movie starring Matt Damon as Sonny Vaccaro, tells the story of the ”sneaker guru” who signed Michael Jordan to his first Nike shoe endorsement deal.

The trailer already has 5.8 million views on YouTube in only four days. The commercial was ranked the joint 17th most successful commercial of the 2023 Super Bowl by USA Today’s “Ad Meter” panelists.

What does the Super Bowl ad model mean for European-based brands?

A recent Kantar study sourced from the Profiles Audience Network found that across three markets, the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, the majority believe that the Super Bowl is an “American event,” but that notion is changing.

Younger generations are more likely to view the Super Bowl as a “Global event” (29 percent). However, for now, Super Bowl commercials are actually largely limited to the U.S. broadcast of the game. That is, until they appear on social media.

FIFA claimed that around 1.5 billion people watched the 2022 World Cup final live on television – a much bigger audience than for the Super Bowl. Could we soon see the same level of buzz around World Cup Final adverts?

And finally, for those of you wondering who “won” in the Super Bowl ad match of 2023, both consumer insights platform Zappi and USA Today bestow the honor to dog food brand, Farmer’s Dog for its ad “Forever.”

Some of the biggest ever viral Super Bowl ads

• The Old Spice commercial from 2010 has had over 61 million views.

• T-Mobile’s musical commercial featuring John Travolta has already garnered over 36 million views in four days

¹ Can your advertising really buy earned impressions? The effect of brand advertising on word of mouth, Mitchell J. Lovett & Renana Peres & Linli Xu, April 2019.