This is what you came for...

If you are like most Americans, you have plans Sunday night. And those plans probably include one of the various activities - crowding around the TV, imbibing beverages, cheering for your preferred team and of course, my personal favorite - waiting for breaks in the game for the commercials.

That's what I come for every year.

This is the one night of the year where Americans wait with bated breath for those Super Bowl commercials. On any other day of the year, when a game goes to break, we'd reach for the remote to mute, pause or fast forward if possible. It's live sports after all and we want to be in the action.

But not Super Bowl. You do not want to skip these commercials. The one night where nearly 100 million Americans allow brands to infiltrate their homes, make sales pitches and then be graded the next day on tone and effectiveness. Sounds like a typical episode of "Shark Tank" right?

Except - as Sherlock Holmes would say "the game is afoot." Something annoyingly interesting has been festering since Queen Bey turned off the lights at the Superdome in 2013. That trend is - advertisers are gradually moving their ad inventory off of prime time television and onto the internet. And the commercials are airing days BEFORE the national anthem or opening kick.

And if you stop and think about it - it makes perfect sense (and ties nicely into my blog post from last week - check it out here!)

Consider the economics on prime time tv…

According to Ad Age, the price to run a 30 second ad during the Super Bowl surpassed $5M in 2017. This VIP (and outrageous) price point creates a huge barrier of entry to smaller brands. So, it's no wonder that according to The Wall Street Journal, the top spenders on Super Bowl ads since 1995 are:

1. Anheuser-Busch InBev

2. PepsiCo

3. Fiat Chrysler

4. Coca-Cola

5. General Motors

Props to those of you who realized the top 5 are composed entirely of automotive and beverage companies.

Now, let's consider internet distribution…

There's no such minimum spend requirement for advertisers to place ads on well oiled and highly effective platforms like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, etc. In fact, any technologist would argue that internet advertising provides a better return on investment given the following:

Multi-channel penetration

No longer is prime time the only medium to reach the prospective ad recipient. Brands can now target customers on a variety of platforms (i.e. those listed above) AND they can utilize news organization or bloggers like myself to distribute their content on their behalf. And it's certainly cheaper than $5M.

An excellent example is Entertainment Weekly's compilation of currently released Super Bowl ads. See below for my current list of favorites.

Repeatability of the ad

The beauty of platform media is the customer can rewatch the ad at any point in time - prime time or after the big game ends. The end result is the same to the advertiser - you watched their ad. Whereas prime time payers can normally only afford a onetime spot which diminishes the effectiveness and uncertainty if your eyeballs actually watched the entire ad.

Case in point - an Old Spice ad from 2010 was watched over 50M times on YouTube…and per The Wall Street Journal, over HALF of those views came in subsequent years - meaning the ad still had relevance.

Side note - I recognize that repeatability can be a negative (i.e. Kendall Jenner's controversary Black Lives Matter Pepsi commercial from 2017) or that some ads are most effective when run only once (i.e. Apple purists will claim that the most effective ads are the ones run only once, specifically, in the year, 1984).

Targeting

For those of you who work in marketing or advertising, you've probably heard this quote -

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, the trouble is, I don't know which half" (John Wanamaker)

Up until recently and with prime time TV, this truth still held. There is no statistically significant measurement that can track a customer seeing an ad (let's say the 2018 Super Bowl Amazon ad…still one of my all time favorites) and then makes the decision to purchase an Amazon Alexa. I discussed some of the reasons behind this limitation last week in my blog.

For companies that still advertise via prime time, they operate with this limitation (and some are okay with it). Not so for digital platforms where performance can be tracked much more closely - nearly down to the mouse click. And even if the customer does not purchase immediately, the data on the user in itself can be valuable down the road.

Engagement

Perhaps the most fascinating metric and one to watch over the next few years is engagement. Advertisers are evolving the ways their brands interact directly with consumers…and quickly.

Previously that relationship was one sided where the advertiser would present one consistent message to the consumer base. Campaigns like "I'm loving it" by McDonalds or "Where's the Beef" by Burger King fall into this category.

But now, with social media, it's easy for advertisers to push out ads in mere minutes and targeted to specific customer cohorts. In fact, let's go back to Beyonce's epic 2013 Super Bowl performance that resulted in a mass power outage.

Sensing an opportunity, Oreo posted a now epic tweet juxtaposing their brand with the power outage.

Note - The tweet said "You can still dunk in the dark."

The tweet, which went viral across Twitter and the next day news outlets, was imaginative and a glimpse of the power of social media - of how brands could directly tap into the emotions of the end user (i.e. this power outage stinks but you can still enjoy your favorite brand).

Another example is Pizza Hut which in 2019 is pledging to deliver free pizza for an entire year to the first baby born during the Super Bowl.

Let that sink in for a minute while you recall that advertisers paying for space on the Super Bowl ad train (again, upfront $5M investment) then pour hundreds of thousands of dollars and spend MONTHS creating messages.

Note - In 2018, Twitter was the only social media platform that saw its user base and engagement increase during the Super Bowl.

In fact, the number of brands moving their ad dollars to the internet platforms increases each year. As Wired reported earlier this week, big brands such as Gatorade, Nike, Toyota and Taco Bell (of Yum Brands) have embraced digital and decreased their dependency on prime time TV spots during the big game.

There's even a category among brands now called the "Interception Award" given out to the advertiser that can incite activity on an equal level as Super Bowl commercials online.

The point is - viewing habits and behaviors of Americans are changing and advertisers must follow suit. Some of that behavior is to move away from prime time through cord cutting or shaving and smart advertisers will follow their base. However, social media is certainly a key driver but not the only driver.

The ugly truth is, football is falling out of favor with Americans as controversies, scandals and dirty dealings surface. And where's there controversy or ill will, brands and advertisers want to distance themselves. (Look no further than the number of celebrities who refused to play the Half-time show at the Super Bowl this year).

Despite these facts, it's unrealistic to expect the price tag of an advertising spot for Super Bowl LIIII to dramatically decrease in 2020. Those automotive and beverage companies will continue to dominate the air waves but watch companies like Amazon - a company utilizing both traditional and digital outlets - and how they choose to interact. It will be fascinating to see if they can create more multi-dimensional prime time advertisements in the future.

Chew on this as you plop on the couch for the game - my favorite commercials thus far debuted on social media for Super Bowl LIII:

Not Everything makes the cut - Amazon

Hands down my favorite commercial thus far. Amazon proves that last year's commercial (Alexa Loses her Voice) was not a one trick pony. Their new ad once again pulls from a combination of celebrity appearances, tongue in cheek humor (recall how I remarked that Amazon put Alexa in a microwave several weeks back) and channeling consumer behaviors. (Plus, any ad with Harrison Ford is an automatic winner).

More than OK - Pepsi

Cardi B makes another Super Bowl commercial - this time for Pepsi in this star studded ad that acknowledges the beverage is usually the #2 choice of consumers and it's okay with that (See what I did there). ;)

Want it that way- Doritos

It seems like a clear winner - take a 90s boy band, throw in Chance the Rapper, a beloved brand in Doritos and mix them together…but something is amiss in this commercial. However, the ad wildly succeeds in making me watch it over and over again to figure out that strange rap which includes lyrics like:

Ooh, hot stuff all over my nachos

Walkin' like a taco

Drivin' over potholes

Hotter than a pot roast

Fingers on my hot chips….

I want it that way

What do you think? Any Super Bowl ads that I missed? Comment below!