The top rate to advertise on the Feb 2 Super Bowl has reached a new high: $4 million for a 30-second spot on the nation’s most-watched event.
If you are an ad manager do you recommend your company bust its budget to be featured on the game being broadcast on Fox?
After all, 90% of the U.S. audience will be watching the game at Met-Life Stadium in New York/New Jersey, meaning an average of 108.4 folks will be plugged in.
Keep in mind, the $4 million is just for the air time. You can easily drop another million-plus producing the spot to try and stand out from other major ad players.
Also keep in mind, if the ad doesn’t go over well with the public it can be like flushing money away. Awareness does not necessarily translate into sales.
Remember the shoe store “Just for Feet” that was on just about every corner a few years ago? The company jumped into the Super Bowl ad game and produced a commercial that viewers found so offensive it was dubbed “Just for Racists.” The company even sued its ad agency (unsuccessfully). The company disappeared by 2004.
Groupon made fun of Tibet in an ad in 2011 that flopped big time.
Subway says it won’t participate this year due to the cost, but GM, which was out last year, is back in 2014.
Ad Age says that the makers of “Butterfinger” felt advertising on the big game was worth the money and is taking the plunge.
“We went to the CEO and management team for incremental advertising dollars to fund it and — literally — they approved it within five minutes,” said Butterfinger Brand Manager Jeremy Vandervoet told Ad Age (LINK) . “We wanted to buy an ad [in the game] to have credibility, to show that we really believe in [the product] and to generate big and broad awareness.”
“The reason advertisers are on the game is because it supercharges their brand. It’s just very hard to tie the [sales] numbers specifically back to that media buy,” Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management told Ad Age.
Spots must be clever, funny or engaging, said Steve Shannon, VP-marketing for Hyundai MotorAmerica, which will make its seventh straight Super Bowl ad appearance in 2014 with two ads.
“We also do TV spots that are about the car,” he said. “It sounds like a quaint idea … but we need to deliver a product benefit or two.” Pointing to Super Bowl ads from unnamed rivals, he said: “While they may have been entertaining, the question is do people remember what brand they are for and did it tell them anything they really need to know about a car?”
