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Nerd Alert: What Makes a Great Super Bowl Ad?
00:12:12
Welcome to Nerd Alert, a series of special episodes bridging the gap between marketing academia and practitioners. We’re breaking down highly involved, complex research into plain language and takeaways any marketer can use. In this episode, Elena...
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- [00:00]
Rob Demars
Nerd Alert. Learning is important, right?
- [00:02]
Alena Jasper
Yes, exactly. But a bunch of nerds.
- [00:05]
Rob Demars
Nerd alert.
- [00:06]
Alena Jasper
Right? Marketing Architects. Hello and welcome to the Marketing Architects, a research first podcast dedicated to answering your toughest marketing questions. I'm Alena Jasper. I run the marketing team here at Marketing Architects. And I'm joined by my co host, Rob demars, the chief product architect of misfits and machines.
- [00:23]
Rob Demars
Hello, Elena.
- [00:25]
Alena Jasper
Hello. We are back with your weekly Nerd Alert. Every week I'll take a deep dive into academic marketing research and translate its complex ideas into simple, understandable language for Rob and of course, for all of you. Are you ready to nerd out, Rob?
- [00:38]
Rob Demars
I am just salivating for some nerdalicious content, Alaina. So let's do this.
- [00:44]
Alena Jasper
All right, let's get into it. As always, we'll link the research we cover in the episode notes. This week I read a study titled Super Bowl Ads Straightforward. I love it. By Wesley R. Hartman and David Copper. With the super bowl this weekend, I thought it'd be fun to cover a study that examines the effects of TV during the Super Bowl. The authors combine super bowl ratings data with weekly sales data to understand how advertising influences consumer behavior during and after the game. Before I get into things, Rob, let me ask you this. Do you think super bowl ads are worth the price? Or maybe when do you think they make sense as a brand investment?
- [01:23]
Rob Demars
I think they make sense when you are a dominant brand with a huge advertising budget and you just want to rub it in and you want to flex your dominance in the category and own one of the biggest spectacles on the planet. I think that makes sense. I don't think it makes sense when you're maybe like a disruptor brand just looking for a way to bet the farm on a big move. I think there's much smarter ways to go about that, but I think that's often the use case for some disruptor brands is go, let's just bet it all on, on the Super Bowl. But no, but if you're a big brand and you want to just show how big you are and how much money you have to spend and you want to own that stage, Absolutely.
- [02:05]
Alena Jasper
I totally agree with you on that. I think that's the best case to do a Super bowl ad because this study is going to reveal that it is not that easy to get like a clear sales positive return on a Super bowl ad because it's so expensive. So I would say data.
- [02:20]
Rob Demars
Elena, I'm ready.
- [02:22]
Alena Jasper
Well, first I want to add though, that your point about like a D2C brand betting the farm is a really great point because we're going to get into this. But you'd be better off, like, spending that 7 million on an annual TV campaign than, like, one airing. It is not simple to get a positive sales ROI from the Super Bowl. So let's get into the study because I think it does a nice job of helping us understand that, like, when does a spot make sense? When is it not effective? So they look at not only immediate results after the super bowl, but also how they influence sales and brand associations over time. So it's a pretty thorough analysis. And the study is obviously fun because it's focused on advertising during the super bowl, which is the most watched event in US Television. Nearly half of all households tune in and advertisers pay $7 million this year for a 30 second spot. But are those millions worth it? To figure that out, they gathered a whole lot of data. They used Nielsen's media ratings to measure super bowl viewership across nearly 200 media markets over six years from 2006 to 2011. Then they paired this data with weekly retail scanner sales for two categories that dominate super bowl advertising spend. So, Rob, what do you think are the top categories for super bowl ads?
- [03:34]
Rob Demars
I'm going to go with alcohol because it just, I mean, I don't know. You always seem to have all the beers on there and, and snacks because who doesn't want to eat a big bag of Cheetos while you're watching the Super Bowl? And then the third one, I guess, movies. It just seems like it's the right time of year to create some buzz around some big releases and movie studios have some money to throw around and some big bets to play there.
- [04:00]
Alena Jasper
Yeah, so you are right on. The only, like, category you kind of missed was technology is now a pretty big category, but you hit all the rest of them. Oh, actually, you didn't. You missed the. The top one. Did you say automotive or did you miss.
- [04:12]
Rob Demars
I said alcohol.
- [04:13]
Alena Jasper
Oh, okay. Alcohol is one of them, but you missed the number one.
- [04:16]
Rob Demars
Oh, automotive. That makes sense. God dang it. That. No, that totally makes sense. Yeah.
- [04:20]
Alena Jasper
Yeah. So that's the. That led the way. But the main categories are media and entertainment, technology, food and alcohol. And all those categories typically make up 75% of spend. So that's like most of the brands that are advertising in the Super Bowl. But for this study, they chose beer and soda brands. So they looked at how much each brand advertised before the game during other NFL broadcasts just to see if that carried over into super bowl impact. And they didn't stop there. They even collected data on NCAA basketball viewership to see if super bowl ads built long term associations with sports. So I guess the takeaway there is that they're not just looking at the immediate airing, they were looking at what happens around it too. So they, they wanted to know two things. First, do these ads actually increase sales for the brands that advertise? And second, are these ads creating lasting associations between the brand and sports as a consumption occasion? And here's what they found. First of all, not all super bowl ads are created equal. Brands like Budweiser and Pepsi, who are longtime super bowl advertisers, benefit significantly. In fact, Budweiser sales increased by about a six pack per 100 households for every 10 point increase in super bowl viewership in a given market.
- [05:31]
Rob Demars
Wow.
- [05:32]
Alena Jasper
Yeah, so that's pretty crazy. And that wasn't just during the game. These effects continued in the weeks following the game, especially when there are other big sporting events like the NCAA basketball tournament. So it seems like that super bowl ad created a connection between Budweiser drinking beer and watching any type of sport. But not every advertiser saw those results. So super interesting, Coca Cola. They advertised consistently during the study period, but they saw no significant sales boost tied to the Super Bowl. So the researchers think that it might be because Coca Cola hasn't built the same association with sports consumption as a Pepsi or a Budweiser. But even non advertising brands sometimes saw a bump in sales simply because they're associated with super bowl parties like Miller or Coors in the beer category. So that suggests that advertising alone isn't enough. You have to really own that consumption occasion to see a payoff. And here's something that I found kind of surprising at first. So when two competing brands advertise during the super bowl, like Coke and Pepsi, their ads essentially like, cancel each other out. So if they're advertising at the same time, neither brand sees as much of a benefit because they're fighting for the same association at the same time. So the study found that too much advertising within a category can exhaust the audience's attention and diminish the effectiveness of individual ads. So here's something else that I didn't know before. Anheuser Busch, who owns Budweiser, they had exclusive advertising rates for alcohol during the Super bowl from 1989 until 2022. So it's no wonder. Yeah, now they own a lot of brands, but it's no wonder that their brand was built so well by the Super Bowl. Because they had all the share of voice went to Anheuser Busch. But the big takeaway here is super bowl ads there aren't just about putting your product in front of millions of viewers. The real magic happens when the ad reinforces an existing association between the brand and a specific consumption occasion. So in this case sports, game day parties or shared celebrations. So if you're trying to build that association from scratch, it's an uphill battle no matter how much you spend. However, I will add that this study focused on that immediate sales lift and what happens during consumption occasions. And it's still possible to have a sales lift even if you can't link your brand directly to the consumption occasion. And there are other reasons to advertise in the super bowl like awareness, credibility, storytelling, cultural reverence, relevance. Like Rob, you mentioned that earlier, if you're a brand that wants to create a level of trust, wants people to have a certain opinion of your brand or see you as relevant, that could be a good reason to advertise in the Super Bowl. But we typically recommend advertisers use TV in an always on Evergreen way. And then once you've totally maxed that out, then you can get into something like the Super Bowl. And now for a robgpt. This study shows that super bowl ads are like party invitations. The most successful ones don't just show up. They make sure they're the life of the party, tying themselves to the food, drinks and festivities everyone came to enjoy.
- [08:29]
Rob Demars
I was actually really interested by the Coca Cola versus Beer stat that you gave that Coca Cola doesn't really see any sort of influence and it just made me wonder if you were going to chart out. I'm sure it's out there, readily available, but just the seasonality of beer and is it tied with all these major sporting events versus Coke has now become like water in the United States. Like we drink it all the time. And so it's just there's. You don't have that opportunity for occasion based buying to occur like you would with, with beer.
- [09:02]
Alena Jasper
That could be. I think that, that you're right that the beer category is easier to tie to something like the Super Bowl. I thought it was interesting how this study, they really focused on like the category entry point of watching a sports game. That's when they found the biggest sales lift. So yeah, I could see that how like it's easier to link a beer brand to sports. That's why most of the commercials you see for a beer brand they involve some sort of sporting event.
- [09:29]
Rob Demars
Again, maybe this is such basic economics. But the consumption and purchase of beer for the purpose of sporting events, I mean obviously the super bowl being massive and then you go right into what's the next big. The NBA is into their season. Right. So these really high stakes time for particular sporting events, does that really drive at such a macro level? Alcohol consumption where sodas just like I'm buying Coke all the time anyways. Or my case, Mountain Dew.
- [10:02]
Alena Jasper
Yeah. So you're saying that the advertising probably helped, but the fact that it's just like the time of year, it's a, It's a good time of year for people to be buying.
- [10:11]
Rob Demars
People like to get drunk when they're watching the big game. I think that's the thesis right there. Whatever sport it might be.
- [10:20]
Alena Jasper
Yeah, it'd be interesting. I know that they only looked at beer and soda, which kind of makes sense that the beer category would do a bit better. But yeah, it'd be interesting to see other like even snacks. I'd be curious how snack brands, you could see the consumption occasions. Very easy for a Cheetos, a Doritos, a Pringles.
- [10:38]
Rob Demars
But are those everyday consumption items as well, you know.
- [10:42]
Alena Jasper
Well, it depends on how big of a problem you have. I mean, beer might be an everyday consumption item or.
- [10:48]
Rob Demars
That's true.
- [10:48]
Alena Jasper
A lot of people.
- [10:49]
Rob Demars
That's true.
- [10:50]
Alena Jasper
I saw a crazy map on Instagram the other day of like the counties that drink the most beer in the US and it was like just Wisconsin was lit up like they had like.
- [11:00]
Rob Demars
Wisconsin and Minnesota is pretty close.
- [11:02]
Alena Jasper
Minnesota had a few too. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder if they looked at our markets because that might just throw everything off. But yeah, I don't know. I thought it was interesting. I wasn't expecting that. I was trying to find a fun study about super bowl ads and I wasn't expecting, expecting this. But I suppose it makes a lot of sense because a Super bowl, it's so like the cost of entry is so high that you really need excellent, relevant, memorable advertising to have the best return. You could see how a brand like Budweiser would have an advantage because they're selling something that naturally goes so well with the super bowl as opposed to like a Turbo Tax, I would think would have a harder time.
- [11:41]
Rob Demars
And all of those major brands, they've already spent on high performance channels. I mean, this is. They have so much money, it's like, okay, now let's just take the crown and be on the Super Bowl.
- [11:52]
Alena Jasper
Exactly. That's it for this episode of the Marketing Architects. We'd like to thank Taylor de los Reyes for producing the show. You can connect with us on LinkedIn and if you like the podcast, please leave us a review. Now go forth and build great marketing marketing architects.