(Feature Image – Bill Hader learns there’s more than one way to stack Pringles in Super Bowl LII “Wow” commercial)
The Super Bowl is the one time of the year where people tune in to not only watch the game but to also see the commercials. Viewers are glued to the screens, and advertisers will do anything they can to take advantage of the situation. They will also sink a lot of money into their ads.
You won’t believe how much companies are paying for a 30-second Super Bowl ad in 2018. According to Ashley Rodriguez of qz.com, advertisers who wish to be featured during Super Bowl LII will plunk down $6 million for 30 seconds of airtime. Budweiser, which is premiering an ad about water (not beer), opted to make a one-minute commercial at a price of $12 million.
One of the reasons the ads cost so much money is because many viewers no longer have cable and are using streaming services to watch the game. The number of people who actually watch the event on network television is increasingly dropping.
“So much of media is fragmenting into smaller and smaller audiences,” explained Tim Calkins, professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, via YardBarker.com. “If you want to reach a lot of people, really the only way you can do it is on the Super Bowl…. It has the lovely combination of a big audience and a group of people that want to listen to the advertising and that makes it so valuable.”
The Super Bowl is the single most-watched television event each year. In 2017, 111 million viewers tuned in, making the game the fifth most-watched broadcast in TV history. It’s so popular, more than three times as many people watched the Super Bowl than the Academy Awards last year.
Meanwhile, the content of the ads this year will likely stay away from political commentary on topics such as the #MeToo movement and the NFL players who knelt during the national anthem to protest racial inequality. Experts predict many of the ads will focus on men doing everyday things. Advertisers may avoid featuring women altogether so they’re not accused of portraying the gender incorrectly. And companies such as Budweiser and Hyundai will spotlight their philanthropic endeavours.
Some teaser trailers (yes, they have them for Super Bowl ads now), feature a fake trailer for Crocodile Dundee 2018, starring Chris Hemsworth, that appears to be an ad for Australian tourism; an ad for Tide featuring actor David Harbour from the Netflix series Stranger Things; and former Friends star David Schwimmer hawking Skittles. Danny DeVito is also fronting an M&M’s commercial, and comedian Bill Hader is doing an ad for Pringles.
Not all ads will feature men, however. Model Cindy Crawford will represent Pepsi, while actress Tiffany Haddish is doing a spot for Groupon. Forty-six percent of Super Bowl viewers are women, reports Nielsen.
According to Andy Goeler, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, companies would be smart to avoid airing overtly sexy commercials.
“You would be crazy to do anything like that at all,” he said. “Females are a key piece of our consumer base. To do anything that would insult females or any demo is crazy.
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