The Super Bowl is upon us once again. This year’s cost per spot is at or near another new high at $5.25 million. With an estimated viewership of 110 million, that’s a $47.73 CPM. According to AdWeek, this is about 1.5 times the CPM of Prime Network TV ($29.75) and four times the average Facebook CPM ($11.17). What gives?
The answer is in both quantity and quality. Quantity in the sense that the size of the Super Bowl viewing audience will be substantially higher than “just” the 110 million pairs of eyes expected to be exposed to it during the live telecast. Quality in the sense that the consequence of the exposure goes well beyond what transpires when a viewer watches a typical TV commercial.
In terms of the viewing audience, social media and the Internet have greatly expanded commercial viewership. In one of the first studies to quantify how Super Bowl advertising and social media influence each one another, G&R found that social media enabled advertisers to effectively increase the number of people who see the advertising (reach), the number of times that a person sees the advertising (frequency), and how well an ad registers with a person (ad engagement). Importantly, the study also demonstrated that the amount of the increase was influenced by the quality of the messaging: the top 25% of brands based on pre-game positive social conversation scored 80% higher on in-game advertising engagement than the bottom 25% and brands in the top 25% based on advertising engagement generated almost 4 times the post-game positive social conversation volume than the bottom 25%.
Other research has confirmed these findings. A study of last year’s (2019) results by video and music analytics company, Pex, reported the social media amplifications to be as much as 42%. The study also confirmed that the augment was greater among certain commercials, reporting that the Amazon/Harrison Ford spot garnered another 45.9 million views on social media while the Lexis/Black Panther ad garnered about half that amount (25.1 million views), for example. A 42% increase in audience size through social media almost erases the CPM penalty and does so without counting the additional viewing of Super Bowl commercials that takes place during the extensive non-game TV discussion of the advertising.
However, as important as audience size is, it is the consequence of an advertisement’s content that is the real driver of brand success. Advertising content takes messaging beyond simple awareness and shapes how we think and feel about the brand. Here, Super Bowl advertising makes two of its most important contributions. First, people are more engaged in the messaging when watching Super Bowl advertising than when they are watching regular TV ads. Second, the Super Bowl viewer can receive uniquely differentiating signaling about the brand beyond what is in the advertising itself.
Engagement is the consequence of an ad’s potential to connect viewers to the brand. There are many ways for a commercial to do this and many connections that an ad can make. Generally, though, the higher the level of engagement – whether as measured by recall, persuasion, positive ad reaction, positive brand attitude shift, and/or some other content centric measure – the more consequential is the exposure and the longer lasting is the lift.
Advertisers on the Super Bowl receive additional value along the engagement dynamic. This is because while people like to look at advertising, they like to look at Super Bowl advertising more. In fact, a lot more: 17% more.
Signaling derives from the work of Nobel Prize winner Michael Spence about the job marketplace. When one hires someone, they often are predisposed to hiring someone from a prestigious college in order to increase the likelihood that hire will turn out to be a strong one. Economists have applied the concept to the product/service marketplace. Consumers want to buy products they can also count on and companies can help consumers know that by communicating a compelling value proposition but also by signaling that they are strong, relevant, successful, committed to quality, and/or already coveted by other customers. As Tim Sullivan and Ray Fishman wrote in the Harvard Business Review, the sheer excess of Super Bowl advertising, uniquely signals that, like the graduate from a prestigious college, the advertiser is among the best, most successful and most secure of companies.
Advertisers on the Super Bowl obtain additional value in the signaling dynamic because while people tend to agree that advertised brands are better than non-advertised brands, they are more likely to find that brands that are advertised on the Super Bowl are the real leaders in their industries. This is 23% higher than the level of people who think that advertised brands are generally better than non-advertised brands.
Note: Mean ratings are based on a 0-10 scale where a ten (10) indicates the most agreement with the statement and a zero (0) indicates the least agreement with the statement. They are averaged over past three game telecasts (2017-2019).
Measuring the qualitative contribution of advertising [is] paramount for understanding and improving an ad’s full overall value.
According to G&R President, Scott Purvis, “Measuring the qualitative contribution of advertising to brand building can be difficult, but it is also paramount for understanding and improving an ad’s full overall value. Whether it has to do with the Super Bowl or regular advertising in any media, study after study has shown this to be true.”
The evidence that Super Bowl advertising can be worth it is strong, especially when the advertising itself is strong. Traditional CPM numbers are no longer informative by themselves because social media and non-Super Bowl exposure can amplify reach by 50% and more. Additionally, important, qualitative benefits, such higher advertising engagement and stronger signaling, add significantly to overall performance. At the same time, the justification for running weak ads is significantly less. They don’t get the substantial social media amplification and/or advertising engagement and signaling may actually count against them.
About G&R:
G&R is an advertising and marketing research company based in Pennington, New Jersey. Founded by George Gallup and Claude Robinson in 1948, G&R helps leading companies understand the effectiveness of their advertising and improve its contribution to their business. For each of the last 25 years, the company has tracked the quality of Super Bowl advertising by polling viewers on the day after the game about commercials they remember, their reactions to them and attitudes towards the viewing experience.
Press Contact:
Stefanie Dursin
(609) 730-1550
stefanie.dursin@gandrllc.com
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