The True Cost of a Super Bowl Ad

Before we tell you our perspective here is some background In 1967 during the first Super Bowl the reported cost of a 30 amp160spot was 42000 It should be noted that with inflation 42000 in 1967 when adjusted for inflation is roughly 300000 today Super Bowl ads have never been cheap but theyamp8217ve always been sought after drawing interest early on from the likes of Master Lock and Macintosh 1984 to Budweiser and CocaColaamp160 Why Because they are generally the highest rated inventory available of the whole year And the game attracts a very diverse audience with some of the hardest to reach demographics tuning inThis year a 30 spot was reported to cost 465MM In fact only 10 years ago it was in the 2MM range Thatamp8217s well over a 100 increase The reason There is nothing on the planet that reaches so many people at the same time Super Bowl 50 had a 1119MM viewers in the US alone with a 49 household rating and a 73 share across Nielsenamp8217s 56 metered markets Plus an increase of 25MM unique viewers 396MM total across laptops desktops tablets connected TV devices and mobile phones And these numbers still donamp8217t accurately count viewing in public places which can be a big uplift It is interesting that this was only the third most watched Super Bowl of all time and the peak for viewership was during the halftime show This makes Pepsiamp8217s positions slotted in half time almost idealLetamp8217s use this yearamp8217s 30 cost of 5MM to make the math simple Of course there is a 15 agency commission Which almost no media agency on the planet gets for network TV Many get 12 and in their wildest dreams might get 45 for a network buy So the spot itself cost the advertiser 45MM with commission to the agency the remainder was rebated to the advertiser This year there was an added hook CBS would not sell a spot to someone without an additional commitment The advertiser had to commit to an equal amount of money on CBS as their Super Bowl commitment This does not affect most advertisers as they either bought the spot in the Upfront market with tens or hundreds of millions in additional advertising or as a part of a larger scatter buy But for the advertiser looking for just one spot in the Super Bowl this might have been quite a shock So now we are talking about 9MM 45MM after the rebate x2There are tons of articles about what you could buy with 5MM let alone 9MM but they miss the point A brand canamp8217t just spend money in one place they need reach extension frequency and engagement for true effectiveness Mediasmith research suggests that in order to properly support a Super Bowl spot you would really need to spend 1520MM to achieve maximum effectiveness for the campaign This includes other sports sitesvideos longtail sports sites through programmatic sports fan targeting through programmatic paid and earned social mobile SEM and eventsPR plus a good budget for collateral instore etcKeeping the above in mind here are some other factoids supporting additional effortsOver a third of this yearamp8217s viewers used a second screen to supplement the gameviewing experience whether checking news commentary sports apps etc52 of viewers planned to use social media while watchingForbes Magazine said it bestamp160 amp8220The advertisers who amp8216winamp8217 from the Super Bowl may not be the advertisers whose creative won the AdMeter but rather those advertisers whose creative integration of their Super Bowl spot into a broader strategic mix drives sustainable longterm resultsamp8221So amp8220ifamp8221 youamp8217re budgeting for next year donamp8217t think just about a spot think about what you want to accomplish with it reach registering a new concept sales etc and build a plan accordingly If you only look at advertising as the cost of a spot then you arenamp8217t seeing the big picture Itamp8217s like thinking you need a famous QB to win the Super Bowl when an outstanding defensive team just might do the trickImage at top courtesy of Corbis The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageMyersBizNet management or associated bloggersamp160

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The True Cost of a Super Bowl Ad

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David Smith

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