For people like me who tend to watch the Super Bowl for the commercial breaks, this year's event is sure to be a different one. The pandemic has changed the way many brands are thinking about this annual investment. What is the right message for a brand to be sending right now? Can they justify a multi-million dollar advertising spend on their balance sheets? Even if they can, will that spend be seen as insensitive in a time of record unemployment rates, where that money may be used to support our communities? And finally, is social media marketing starting to take the place of commercial breaks?
One example is Budweiser. The brand has run Super Bowl ads for 37 years, and they often produce highly anticipated and viral Super Bowl ads. But this year, they chose to not run an ad. Instead, they reallocated this advertising spend to support Covid-19 vaccine efforts, and instead produced a short film called "The Bigger Picture" which they published online. The brand is finding that this short film, posted on social media, has performed better than their last five years of Super Bowl ads, showing higher ratings in consumer sentiment toward the brand. Other brands are turning to social media platforms like TikTok, which generated $5.6 billion in ad revenue in the first three months of 2020 alone. Compare that to the $400 million Fox took in for last year's Super Bowl ads, and it looks like social media is a winning strategy.
How do you think this year's Super Bowl ads will be different?
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