Super Bowl: network toasts record bookings, platforms chase second screen

Traditional advertising around the Super Bowl reaches new, expensive heights while digital platforms vie to be the second-screen destination of choice.

Why it matters

The Super Bowl’s advertising mix is changing, but the high price of a spot during the live broadcast appears to grow, amid reportedly high audience excitement. Meanwhile, digital platforms battle it out for a share of the real-time conversation by selling space cheap.

Of course, both forms are a type of gamble but successful brands can capture some of the best quality reach at very good value, if the creative work and the cross-media plans come off. The trick, much of the research shows, is being able to match the spectacle of the occasion, across platforms, and in a way that benefits the brand (rather than the celebrities who tend to star in the ads).

What’s going on: Fox counts the benefits of a record year

Fox Sports, this year’s rights holder, has booked record sums as it heads into this Sunday’s Super Bowl clash between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs.

• The network says it has managed to sell some of its 30-second spots for over $7m, while most brands are paying closer to a relatively reasonable $6.5m.
• “It’s certainly far and away the most money that we’ve ever booked in a Super Bowl,” said Fox Sports EVP/Sales Mark Evans in comments to Sports Business Journal. “All of the usual suspects are there.”
• Timing: exclusivity deals, such as that of AB InBev on alcohol advertising during the broadcast, have ended, opening up more spending opportunities for competitors.

It has been a complicated year for the broadcaster, which began the season with the vast majority of inventory sold, only for major crypto advertisers to pull out – now-collapsed FTX, for instance, had booked a minute-long slot. Other brands, meanwhile, have held back amid economic and supply chain problems.

The battle for the real-time conversation

Platforms, on the other hand, vie for the real-time conversation, with TikTok pushing its relevance and topicality hard.

Digiday has the news that some digital platforms are offering big deals, based on pitch decks seen by the website:

• Twitter has offered brands up to $250,000 in free ad space.
• TikTok will offer ad credit to the tune of 3%-5% for brands that spend between $50,00-$300,000 on Super Bowl campaigns.

Twitter remains the main destination for conversation during the broadcast but with brands concerned about the current direction of the platform, its ability to turn that traffic into commercial gain is under threat. Namely from TikTok.

Sourced from Sports Business Journal, Digiday, Bloomberg, WARC