The Big Money of the Big Game
Each year the Super Bowl is one of the most watched television events in the world. There’s millions of eyes on the game, and millions upon millions of dollars behind it and tied to it. A Super Bowl ad has now become the most expensive 30 seconds on TV, at more than $3.4million per spot.
There’s more to take into consideration than simply the cost of the ads though. A recent survey by Lab42 revealed the following:
- 39% of people prefer the ads over the actual game (one of the reasons we created Big Game Advertising Bingo)
- 64% said that more than half their game related conversations the next day revolve around the commercials
- 69% have re-watched a Super Bowl commercial online
- 72% believe the game commercials are funnier than “regular” commercials, while 57% consider them more creative, and 21% say they’re memorable
Clearly, there’s a lot expected of the ads, and the benefits extend both before and beyond the game. Toyota’s “Wish Granted” commercial starring Kaley Cuoco has garnered over 10.6 million views before the game, with many others reaching millions of views as well. Advertisers can also expect a 20% increase in web traffic as well.
Influence extends well beyond ads during the game. Some restaurants and bars are seeing an increase in foot traffic and orders. And the food people by for parties? Figures from 2012 show that 16 million chicken wings were sold during the game, as was 4 million pizzas (not counting frozen pizzas), while spending over $10billion on beer. Dominos pizza drivers alone will drive over 4 million miles on Super Bowl Sunday (revenue for transportation, fuel, etc.).
Advertising, food, and beverage categories are still only a small piece of the pie. There’s events, the hospitality industry for the host cities, and apparel and merchandise sales for the teams, which affects the retail industry. And of course there’s the teams themselves. Any way you look at it, the “big game” is big money, affecting in ways you might not even have noticed. So, how’s does the big game affect you?
Related posts:
A Guide To Determining Advertising Budgets
As we enter the 2013 planning quarter, our most frequent client conversations are centered on the annual marketing communications budget. For most companies, what they would like to invest in marketing communications and what they can afford are two different dollar amounts. So determining the annual marketing communications budget and how to most effectively allocate that budget is a key CMO responsibility that requires market insight, proper evaluation of marketing activities and some creativity.
The brand’s goals, its current market position and specific challenges, as well as competitive activity, should all be considered so that no one method should bind a company. And because there is no single method of determining a proper marketing communications budget, the process can be an in-depth and difficult one. However, a fairly simple and commonly used method that we refer to as a first step is determining the ratio of advertising expenditures to projected sales.
This annual report, created by Schonfeld & Associates, Inc. and featured in Ad Age, is a valuable resource. We use it as a discussion guide and to help prevent our marketing wish list from getting way out of proportion.
You can download the full 2011 list with the top 200 industries HERE.
- Linda Passante, CEO, The Halo Group
