The Million Dollar Dump

The Super Bowl is here! And so is the golden season for advertisements. As one of the most celebrated sports events in United States, Super Bowl attracts the biggest buyers for advertisements. In 2014 we saw a record average of 112.2 million viewers for the game (MarketingCharts), arguably putting Super Bowl as the best place to reach out to American households.  With that it is then not hard to justify the $4.5 million price tag for a mere 30 sec ad during Super Bowl.  But is it truly worth it?

If it were in the previous era, judging the effectiveness of a TV ad would solely rely on impressions. In this digital marketing era however, a lot of the impressions and even conversions could finally be measured. A glimpse at the number shocked me: 2.4 million Twitter users posted 4.9 million tweets about the ads; conversation about the Super Bowl (including the game, halftime show, and brands) reached 25.3 million tweets by 5.6 million authors, equating to 1.8 billion impressions and a unique audience of 15.3 million accounts; advertisers enjoyed social mentions that were 7 times higher than on their typical day. (MarketingCharts) Who wouldn’t give it a try if their target audience is all US residents?

Traditionally, the automobile industry would take the major share in the Super Bowl season, and this year is no exception. The interesting thing is, some of the major car manufacturers are backing out this year while many new companies have joined the race. Is that a sign of ad ineffectiveness? Perhaps only the companies know. Nevertheless we do see many companies took full advantage of the opportunity in expanding their influence. For example, T-Mobile had several awesome ads that were pushed out and went absolutely viral. This year they are back with Kim Kardashian, well, I guess a video is worth a thousand words:

It is also interesting to look at different companies’ strategy in releasing their Super Bowl ads. Some companies chose to release their ads in entirety weeks before the actual event, whereas some other companies such as Nissan, chose to release just part of their ads. (Movie Trailers? Really?) Interestingly, data have shown that companies who released pre-game content saw 175% higher viewership compared to content released only during the game. Looks like some companies should reconsider their strategy now.

In addition, there is an increasing trend of multi-screen consumers who would not be engaged with the Super Bowl TV ads that well. Data show that 83% Super Bowl viewers use a second screen (Lab42), and mobile sharing was up by 67% compared to last year. Given that, many digital marketing companies have developed new solutions for their clients: cross-platform targeted advertisements, so that no matter what device you are using, you would most likely see the same ad appearing on your phone as on your TV. (God, where can we hide now?)

All in all, it seems that the true value of super bowl ads lies way beyond the 30 seconds on screen. With the help of Youtube, Facebook, etc., many well produced super bowl ads were shared and promoted basically at no additional cost to the producer. Serving as the best seeding point for companies, Super Bowl ads have created a resonating synergy between traditional and innovative media platforms.