As the NFL’s 2015 regular season winds down this weekend, some marketers are busily planning their ads for “Super Bowl Sunday,” which will be on February 7, 2016 in Santa Clara, California at Levi’s Stadium and televised on CBS. 2016 marks a special celebration for the Super Bowl as this will be game 50. To see our pre-Super Bowl 2015 post about advertising, click here.
For 2016, there will be a mix of veteran advertisers and newcomers. See the latest TV commercial lineup at this Web site. As Claire Groden reported for Fortune:
“A 30-second Super Bowl ad is selling for as much as $5 million [said CBS network president and chief executive Leslie Moonves]. That’s 11% higher than the base price of $4.5 million that NBC charged advertisers during the prior Super Bowl, according to ESPN. Between 2005 and 2014, the price of a 30-spot increased 75%, generating a total of $2.19 billion in sales.”
“Prices are so high because marketers are willing to pay to access the enormous audience. Some 114.4 million people on average tuned into the 2015 Super Bowl to watch the Seattle Seahawks play the Patriots, making the game the most-watched broadcast in the history of U.S. television. That estimate doesn’t even account for larger viewing groups at private parties, or bars.”
But, Advertising Age raises a good question: “Is the Super Bowl still worth it? What’s at stake when a brand spends millions to compete in the ad industry’s biggest day?”
Take a look at this YouTube video from Advertising Age.