
It may not be the biggest sporting event in the world with its global audience of 150,000,000 - it pales next to the World Cup where in China alone over 300,000,000 watched the 2012 South African FIFA event. Nor does it match the Olympics where over the duration over 4 billion TV viewers tuned in to watch the Beijing Olympics. However, when it comes to revenue the Superbowl takes some beating. Tis year the 2016 Final charged $5 million dollars for every 30 seconds of TV advert and was paid by over 50 companies to place their message in front of 120 million Americans.
Officially a game of American football lasts 60 minutes, broken up into four quarters of 15 minutes. But Super Bowl 50 hoovered up four hours of peak airtime, including a 30 minute half time show.
According to Advertising Age companies have spent $5.9 billion on commercials since the first Super Bowl in 1967.
The Super Bowl is a child of the television age. The first game, in which the Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs, drew an audience of just over 24 million.
Last year’s 2015 clash between attracted the biggest television audience in American history, 114.4 million viewers and was watched in 71 percent of homes. By the time of the winning touchdown this year in 2016 there were more than 120 million people glued to their screens.
The commercials have become as much part of the event as the game itself. The Association of American Advertising Agencies state that:
“There is a guaranteed, built-in audience that will be not only watching the game, but talking about the advertising. Consumers recognise that, historically, advertisers have upped their game during the Super Bowl, that they will pull out all the stops to try to entertain them and that they’ll get to see something new.”
For years there has been as much hype around the adverts as the game. For weeks ahead of the event the adverts are premiered [most have a You Tube presence] and have been dissected as if they were part of the tactical plans of the teams. Soda Stream created controversy by being banned three years ago and for the past two years there has been many efforts by the advertisers to generate attention. Doritos 'Crash the Super bowl campaigns have been running since 2006 and invite the public to script their advert.
Most agencies hire in social media experts to analyse Facebook and Twitter traffic with 70 percent of the audience now watching the game whilst on social media on phones, laptops or tablets and many of these stating that they talk as much [more] about the adverts as they do the game.
Artists aren’t paid to perform, but given the size of the audience it is tantamount to free advertising. Last year, for example. Katy Perry sold just under 40,000 albums – including digital downloads – in the week before Super Bowl and nearly 60,000 in the previous week, while in 2014 Bruno Mars saw sales shoot up from a shade below 100,000 to more than 150,000.
So what do advertisers get for their money?
- Exposure
- Brand recognition
- Glamour of link to the event
- Sense that company has 'made it'
- Sales
Axe [or as we like to think of it, Lynx] are a major player. Owned by the Unilever corporation, AXE is a massive brand and plays upon a 'laddish' sexually non-PC image to attract its consumer base of young males 14-25.
No comments:
Post a Comment