The Super Bowl: Advertisers’ biggest stage
In an era of cord-cutting and ad-skipping, the Super Bowl is a sweet salve for the nation’s marketers. There is no bigger stage for advertisers — last year’s game drew more than 111 million viewers — and that is why they are willing to shell out millions of dollars to be on it for 30 seconds.
In 2017, brands like Airbnb and 84 Lumber ran spots that were viewed as responses to President Donald Trump’s remarks on immigration and Audi broadcast a commercial advocating equal pay for women.
Susan Credle, the global chief creative officer at the agency FCB, said before the game that this year’s advertisers may be “concerned about looking opportunistic versus supportive.” And humor, she noted, was particularly appealing given the social and political climate.
The average cost of a 30-second ad in the Super Bowl is more than $5 million this year, according to ad buyers, roughly in line with last year. And that does not count all the expenses tied to making and promoting an ad, like the star power. Cindy Crawford, Peter Dinklage and Danny DeVito were among the famous who made appearances this year.
Wendy Clark, the chief executive of DDB North America and a former marketing executive at Coca-Cola, said she was underwhelmed by the ads in the game’s opening quarter. “At the end of the day, a Super Bowl ad is about epic, over-the-top production value,” and the first quarter “was a little quiet in the end.”
Still, Clark was a fan of the Tide ad and the Doritos-Mountain Dew adfeaturing Dinklage and Morgan Freeman lip-syncing to the hip-hop artists Missy Elliott and Busta Rhymes.
“The complete flip to Morgan Freeman, it’s just so good,” she said. “There’s a surprise aspect there and it’s really enjoyable watching those two characters rap — the complete 180 is fantastic.”