Are Superbowl Ads Still Relevant?

Are you ready for some football?

…Because I certainly am. And by football, I mean commercials. And by ready, I mean, “excited and will lure others to join me with various calorie-laden dip recipes.”

This time of year tends to get people in the advertising and marketing world revved up in a number of ways. My personal favorite is the inevitable digital vs. traditional – internet marketers who say that tv is worthless now, and traditional marketers who say that no one venue or event will ever be able to compare to the exposure/branding power of the Superbowl.

There is no doubt that the Superbowl is a huge beast in the advertising world. The figures alone are staggering – two thirds of all Americans intend to watch the game. Unlike most tv (where people fast forward the commercials or leave the room to get a snack), most people actually enjoy the advertising. Almost 60% of the people who plan to watch actually look forward to the ads – when else does that happen?

The funds necessary to buy a Superbowl ad campaign are also mind-boggling. A thirty second ad costs anywhere from $2.3 to $3 million dollars. For those of you scoring at home, that works out to approximately $100,000 a second.

But is it worth it? Some students at the University of Virginia recently did some calculations for deeper analysis. If we’re talking strict return, there are some serious sales metrics to hit. Based on their calculations, Snickers would have to sell 6,329,406 candy bars to pay for a $3 million ad, while Bridgestone would have to sell 298,656 tires and Skechers would have to sell 205,339 pairs of shoes. Clearly, Snickers isn’t expecting a direct 1:1 ROI on these ads. What they’re banking on is consumers liking the ads, the media talking about the ads, and the brand ultimately finding a place in the back of peoples’ brains. You know, the way TV advertising usually works.

And that’s where ‘hybrid’ ads start to complicate things. Experts are predicting an influx of social media presence in this year’s ads, a vast difference from past years where ads drove users to brand websites. This year, instead of driving users to a static website, ads will suggest that users interact with a brand’s Twitter/Facebook/Foursquare/etc. We know that engagement helps brands to stick– and with the constant influx of information regarding how social media is changing the world — I don’t think there’s any way that ad execs could have ignored that.

I’m looking forward to seeing how it pans out this year. Enjoy your Sunday!