No Super Bowl for Frito-Lay,
There are still three weeks left in the NFL’s regular season, but that hasn’t stopped companies from revealing their ad playbooks for February’s Super Bowl.
Thursday, domain name seller GoDaddy is slated to announce it is rejoining the field, with plans to advertise in Super Bowl LI after sitting out last year’s big game. It joins other marketers such as Mars-owned Snickers and Skit- tles candies, Avocados from Mexico, WeatherTech, Wix and Anheuser-Busch InBev. Anheuser-Busch will advertise several brands during the Feb. 5 game, including Budweiser, Bud Light and Busch, with the latter making its Super Bowl ad debut.
GoDaddy’s upcoming 30-second ad will mark the 12th time the brand has advertised in the Super Bowl.
“We’re back,” GoDaddy Chief Marketing Officer Barb Rechterman says. The company took off last year’s game to devote resources to expanding its international presence, she says, with its services now available to more than 56 markets.
Known for its provocative ads that featured scantily clad wom- en and some shocking storylines, its early Super Bowl ads helped turn the company into a brand name. GoDaddy hasn’t revealed much about what its upcoming commercial will feature. It is, however, teasing that it will promote a new, yet-to-be announced product and will be the first of a yearlong campaign designed to highlight the “power of the Internet.”
In a season where NFL TV viewership has seen declines, the Super Bowl is still a major attraction for advertisers. Last year’s battle between the Carolina Panthers and Denver Broncos drew 113 million viewers, with 16.9 million Super Bowl-related tweets sent during the game, according to research firm Nielsen. In 2015, 114 million people tuned in to see the New England Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks, which was the most-watched Super Bowl ever.
While GoDaddy and others are back, PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay, maker of Doritos, will sit this year out.
“There are no plans for FritoLay brands to advertise during the upcoming Super Bowl as it did not fit with our marketing plans,” the company said in a statement.