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A record 97.5 million viewers watched the Super Bowl last year. No wonder advertisers are willing to pay a reported $3 million for a 30-second ad during this year's Super Bowl. 黑洞社区 marketing professor Stephen Porter says the challenge facing advertisers is that people are actually watching the ads to be critical and to be entertained.
Porter: "One of the key challenges of advertising around the Super Bowl is being able to develop an ad that people are going to remember. People view the Super Bowl differently. They expect more out of their ads. They're going to talk about those ads, and so the advertiser actually has to bring out their A game if they're going to be successful around the Super Bowl."
By some measures, it makes financial sense, and might even be a bargain, relatively speaking, to advertise during the Super Bowl, as Porter explains.
Porter: "One of the key things that companies have to consider about advertising around the Super Bowl is the cost. This year the cost is $3 million for a 30-second spot, and a company's got to truly figure out 鈥� is that going to be a good investment of their promotion dollars."
Porter explains why some companies find advertising during the Super Bowl worthwhile.
Porter: "As a company looks at advertising around the Super Bowl, one of the key things that they've got to consider is, does their product fit the viewership of the Super Bowl? Is there a relationship between the target audience for their product and the people that are watching the Super Bowl?"
Despite all the hype about their creativity and an ability to reach television's largest audience annually, Super Bowl commercials are risky ventures. Millions of dollars are dropped in less time than breaks between NFL plays, and the result may be viewers' yawns and media pans.
Porter: "There's tremendous risk in advertising around the Super Bowl for a company, because people 鈥� again 鈥� they view the Super Bowl ads differently. They're critical. They want to be entertained. And in fact, many people look at the advertisements as part of the Super Bowl experience."
Porter says people watch commercials differently during the Super Bowl. And advertising during the Super Bowl is a unique advertising opportunity. It's the rare opportunity to reach across demographics.
Porter: "The challenge facing the advertising during the Super Bowl is that people are actually watching the ads to be critical, to be entertained. And one of the things that they have got to do is to understand this. It's not going to be, 'Oh, I bumped into the ad.' It's, 'Hey, did you see the ad for XYZ and did you think it was as funny as I did?'"
For all of the hype of Super Bowl ads, Porter says it's hard to measure whether the cost is worth the investment.
Porter: "The key issue that a lot of companies are going to ask themselves 鈥� was my money well spent around the Super Bowl? And this is really tough. It's hard to determine if an ad was successful. There's always a lag time between the time that somebody may see the ad and purchase the product. We can measure brand recognition. We can measure brand recall, but ultimately what companies are after is a sale, and so the issue is going to be, you know, what was the water cooler talk? Do people remember the ad? And did they buy my product or service?"
And in the day of the Internet, ads will be watched online millions of times after the game, so their life, and thus impact, is seemingly limitless today. Still, Super Bowl ads are a roll of the dice. Which is why some advertisers think spreading the risk among a number of prime sporting events may be the smarter move.
Thanks for listening. Until next time, this is Joe Kleinsasser for 黑洞社区.