They Want How Much for Super Bowl Spots?

We all saw or read the many news stories about TV commercials in this year’s Super Bowl Game.  Many of those stories prior to game day centered on the cost of airing one 30 second commercial – $2.7 million. That’s a lot of ad dollars, no matter how big the ad budget. So is the juice worth the squeeze?

Two factors are critical in creating advertising response: reach and frequency.  Reach, meaning how many potential customers are exposed to the message, and frequency, how many times will the message reach the average target consumers. 

The Super Bowl certainly delivers advertiser reach in spades.  This year’s game, Super Bowl XLII, delivered the second largest TV audience of any program ever broadcast, second only to the final episode of MASH.  So the commercials in the game achieved significant reach. 

Frequency is often a function of the ad budget. How many airings of the commercial can the advertiser afford?  At $2.7 million per spot in the game, not many advertisers are able to achieve significant reach on Super Bowl Sunday.

However, there are other factors that improve frequency and reduce the cost per commercial for in-game ads.  Simply stated, it’s the hype.  The Super Bowl broadcast has become the Academy Awards event for TV commercials.  Many advertisers release the entire commercial, or even shorter clips of their spots in advance of the big game.  These commercials are viewed, written about and rated well before their official showing during the big game because of the buzz companies pay additional funds to accomplish.

For example, Pepsi developed their ad campaign well in advance and while Budweiser didn’t release their full ad units, they did succeed in engaging large number of viewers via short 8-10 second teaser snippets… all to boost the exposure of their advertising investment.

Over three quarters of the advertisers promoted URLs in their spots to expand cross-promotional tie-ins.  Advertisers also posted their spots online for viewing as soon as they aired in the game.  MySpace, YouTube and other social network sites carried the game spots for viewing, blogs and feedback loops – the chance for consumers to give their opinions of the commercials and products.

So advertisers certainly received more than one viewing for their $2.7 million commercial.  But the Super Bowl is only for advertisers with huge budgets.

Phil Condron
President & CEO