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The Super Bowl of commercials

The biggest football game of the year is the biggest platform for advertisers. Companies paid $5.5 million to make a 30-second impression.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Some watch for the football. 

Some watch for the halftime show. 

Some are just in it for the snacks.

Whatever your reasons chances are you will be watching the Super Bowl on Sunday. I know it, you know it, and the advertisers know it as well.

That is why some companies are willing to spend $5.5 million dollars for just 30 seconds of air time. Super Bowl 54 generated a record $447 million dollars in ad revenue last year with just 70 commercials running for a total of 46 minutes. 

Sara MacSween, President of The Marketing Boutique, told me that companies spend up to a year crafting their Super Bowl spots hoping they will connect with viewers.

"Bottom line for all companies they want to connect to customers or you wouldn’t be spending that much time on the ad spot or creating it"

MacSween explained that this year's Super Bowl has its atypical pros and cons. Striking the right tone could prove to be challenging considering the seriousness of the COVID pandemic but with smaller Super Bowl gatherings there will be less to distract viewers from the commercials.

That should be a good thing for the advertisers cause people are paying more attention to what's actually on the screen as opposed to the fun of the Super Bowl evening in year's past."

Year after year the Super Bowl is the most-watched broadcast in the United States. In fact, 29 of the 30 most-watched broadcasts of all time are Super Bowls. 

The eyeballs are definitely there but at the end of the day, are the commercials actually effective? Do they work?

"The answer is, it depends" according to Professor Derek Rucker of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

"The misstep a lot of people make is it is not enough to just show up for the Super Bowl"

Professor Rucker, and his colleague Professor Tim Calkins, run the Kellogg Super Bowl Ad Review, an annual project that has graded and evaluated Super Bowl commercials since 2005.

According to Professor Rucker, their panel is stingy with an A-rating which means a majority of the ads fall in the "B" to "C" range.

"To earn an "A" you really have to have something that sticks and is powerful and it's moving."

You also have to be memorable. Even during their ad review, which Professor Rucker dubbed an "inverse Super Bowl party", commercials that aired in the previous bloc are quickly forgotten.

 But the right brand, with the right ad, can actually capitalize on the Super Bowl's enormous platform.

"For the right brand there is actually a lot of exposure and we have seen brands launch at the Super Bowl that gets flooded with consumers understanding who they are."

Professor Rucker and MacSween agree that the best brands squeeze the most value out of their investment by using their ad to launch an entire marketing campaign. 

A great example would be the "You're not you when you're hungry" Snickers ad that ran a few years back. Betty White was a perfect casting choice because she is recognizable across age demographics. The ad itself was memorable and humourous, and it launched a multi-year campaign of similar ads that are still running today.

Professor Rucker maintains that "The best of the best often stick with you where you're still talking about them years later which is incredible."


That is the magic advertisers are after each and every year. The best ads get shared on social media. They are talked about days later amongst friends or on other media platforms. They are remembered long after the game ends late on Sunday night.

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