This Sunday, family and friends will gather across the smart TV while checking their social media feeds and ordering food on their phones. It’s the newest edition of a tried-and-true American holiday — Super Bowl LVIII.
While the sport on the large screen will bring recent glory to either the Kansas City Chiefs or the San Francisco 49ers, the fan experience — and all those commercials — will bring nostalgia and interactive delight to digital consumers.
The game is simply the beginning. Brands will use their big media ad spends as the idea for campaigns within the months ahead. And businesses that didn’t shell out $7 million for a 30-second spot will reap the benefits of all the excitement to connect with customers.
Nostalgia is back for big brands
This yr, brands aren’t forgetting that the Super Bowl is a convention. Budweiser and other big brands are using their Super Bowl LVIII spend to tap into the wealthy tradition of the large game, in addition to the broader culture.
“Nothing symbolizes Super Bowl tradition like Budweiser’s iconic Clydesdales, especially while you throw a dog within the frame and call it ‘Old-School Delivery,’” Gartner marketing analyst Andrew Frank told MarTech.
He added: “But you possibly can see currents of nostalgia running through many major spots, comparable to Oreos’ ‘Twist on It’ with Kris Jenner, and BetMGM ‘Tom Has Won Enough’ with Tom Brady and Vince Vaughn.”
With these ads, brands are offering their audience comfort and stability with established icons.
“I believe the agencies got it right this yr,” said Frank. “Following a seeming countless wave of disorienting global events, the audience is ripe for a return to traditional symbols and comforting humor.”
New faces on the large TV screen
Nerds Candy is making its Super Bowl debut with an ad featuring a rising star, Addison Rae. Although now she is a longtime singer on the Billboard charts and an actor in movies, Rae got famous on TikTok, thanks to her 88 million followers.
Rae’s presence makes the Super Bowl more relevant for all those followers taking in the sport. Surely, marketers are looking for the subsequent crossover talent to star for their brand on the same stage.
“You’re going to see quite a bit more influencers and crossover celebrities, particularly Addison Rae for the Nerds brand,” Tom La Vecchia, president and CEO of digital marketing agency X Factor Media, told MarTech.
Pre-game buzz on TikTok and other short-form video
It isn’t nearly game day for Super Bowl marketers — it’s about constructing awareness on channels where customers are of their on a regular basis lives.
“I’m seeing more ‘pre-game’ buzz, which incorporates teasers and trailers totally on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube shorts,” La Vecchia said. “Some brands are rolling out interactive contests to construct more hype and engagement. Like in other years, celebrity influencers are on the highest of the agenda for marketers to reach Gen Y and Z viewers.”
The viral nature of TikTok makes the platform attractive to creators and brands alike, especially for the critical 18-55 demographic, said La Vecchia.
“There ought to be some digital, social component to reap the benefits of the timing,” he said. “Also which platform you utilize matters as well. Loads of the eye goes towards TikTok, and those eyeballs seem to be coming from X (formerly Twitter).”
Advertisers unfollowing X
The numbers appear to back up the sense of a vacuum left by X advertisers. Announced Super Bowl LVIII advertisers spent 55% less on X/Twitter in 2023 than they did in 2022, according to ad intelligence company MediaRadar.
This implies that moving forward, many Super Bowl advertisers are looking elsewhere to construct buzz about their campaigns.
In contrast, the group of brands that advertised within the Super Bowl in 2023 spent 16% more on X than they did in 2022.
BetMGM reduced its spending on the platform by 87% in 2023. In total, the group of 2023 Super Bowl advertisers spent $48.4 million on X. This yr’s Super Bowl advertisers spent only $21.1 million on it, according to MediaRadar.
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Taylor Swift (and Travis Kelce) Super Bowl Effect
A busy Taylor Swift is pulling out all of the stops so she will be able to make it to the sport and cheer for the apple of her eye, Chiefs’ tight end Travis Kelce.
Swift has already had a huge effect on the NFL — getting her huge fanbase concerned about the sport has improved rankings and attendance. Swift is flying in from Japan where she has a concert the night before the sport. The superstar will likely have an excellent impact on the audience and the brands she works with. However, regardless that they love her in Kansas City, she runs second to her beau when it comes to promoting.
Campbell Soups’ ads with Kelce ads were 30% simpler in places with more Chiefs’ fans than they were elsewhere, according to research from adtech measurement company EDO. Likewise, his ads for Pfizer rating big with the house crowd: They were 113% simpler when aired during Chiefs games than they were during games the Chiefs weren’t in.
Ads featuring Swift were hugely effective with everyone except Chiefs fans. Capital One’s Swift ads were 218% simpler during non-Chiefs games than games featuring the team, according to EDO.
“While Kelce has been driving strong ad performance for brands pre-Swift Effect, consumer engagement has been even stronger after their relationship went public,” said Kevin Krim, CEO of EDO.
Regardless, Kelce and Swift on the Super Bowl will probably be an enormous boost for brands working with them.
“With his star power on the rise, backed by Swifties all over the place, Kelce has solidified his spot as a celeb athlete who will proceed to drive strong performance for TV advertisers,” Krim said.
Advertisers and consumers open to recent streaming opportunities
Those who want to stream Super Bowl LVIII may have more viewing options than in previous years. The big game, airing on CBS for linear TV watchers, will even be available via streaming on Paramount+ and packages that include it on Fubo, Hulu, DirecTV Stream, YouTube Live and SlingTV.
Many of the services provide a free trial. Streaming services will likely receive a lift from cord-cutters who’re glad of their cable-less lifestyle but still want to see the sport.
Nearly half (48%) of consumers said they’d have an interest if their web provider offered a special package for Super Bowl viewing with a one-time fee, according to a study of 1,000 consumers by software products and services company Amdocs. Furthermore, 64% said live sports are a very important factor when it comes to choosing a streaming provider.
“The transition to streaming has opened up recent revenue and promoting possibilities for the NFL,” Nuno Andrade, CIO for marketing agency Media Culture, told MarTech. “For example, Peacock’s commercial-free fourth quarter during an NFL game introduced an revolutionary promoting approach, reducing the general variety of ads while still engaging viewers through branded content from Capital One, Hyundai, and Walmart.”
For now, advertisers looking to make an impact on local audiences in the course of the Super Bowl may have to advertise on linear TV. But this is probably going to change soon.
“At this stage, Super Bowl in-game just isn’t sold locally on CTV due to access points of the inventory,” Darwin Aguinaldo, media director, linear media for Media Culture, told MarTech. “CTV is sold through a national platform (on this yr’s case, Paramount), and they only don’t have the flexibility at this stage to sell specific markets for the Super Bowl. We have noticed that prior to now yr, sports access points have grown, so it’s something we’re keeping track of as we imagine within the near future, this could possibly be one other opportunity.”
“The NFL’s ability to maintain and expand its audience through streaming platforms reaffirms that the appeal of football goes beyond the medium through which it’s delivered,” said Andrade.” Fans’ loyalty to the NFL implies that the medium — whether traditional broadcast or streaming — is secondary to the sport itself.”
Dig deeper: What everybody was buzzing about in the course of the Super Bowl
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