As deflated footballs spark a cheating controversy surrounding the New England Patriots as they prepare to battle the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX, the prospects of deflating and inflating expectations for commercials on the Big Game have become a subject of debate. Before that, though, it’s clear that the price of a :30 ad timeslot during the Super Bowl on Feb. 1 is inflating at a healthy rate—from an average of $3.8 million on CBS in 2013 to a then record high of $4 million on Fox in 2014, and now a whopping $4.5 million on NBC.
How to make the most of such a substantive media investment, however, is highly subjective. Do you go with teaser ads prior to the telecast to whet viewer appetites? Do you inflate or deflate audience anticipation and expectations by going this route? How about showing your full blown Super Bowl commercial in advance of the Big Game? Or is there something to be said for being “old school” and keeping your creative treasure under wraps until the players hit the gridiron?
“After nearly a two-decade absence from the Super Bowl as an advertiser, we want to maintain the excitement and anticipation of game day. With so many commercials airing before the Big Game, I fundamentally believe it takes away much of the magic of showing the commercial on the biggest stage of the year,” said Fred Diaz, senior VP, Nissan Sales & Marketing and Operations U.S., Nissan North America, Inc.
“Prior to the Super Bowl, we do however want to build suspense around our story, while provoking a social conversation around the overarching theme [of family and parenting],” continued Diaz. “Our highly creative YouTube content creators help us do just that as we get ready to share our spot with America on Super Bowl Sunday,”
Via TBWAChiatDay LA, Nissan released a series of seven YouTube films made in partnership with popular YouTube content creators. The thinking is that the online content will pique interest in Nissan’s Super Bowl :60 without tipping off the content of that broadcast spot.
In sharp contrast, a perennial Super Bowl advertiser, Anheuser-Busch, has already done a pre-game release of Bud Light’s “Coin,” a 90-second spot which shows an “up for whatever” guy dropped into a life-sized game of Pac-Man. Conceived by a team at EnergyBBDO, Chicago, the spot is slated to run during the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl telecast. Other A-B commercials were also scheduled to gain online exposure prior to the Big Game, including a tug-at-the-heartstrings Budweiser piece from Anomaly NY centered on the friendship between a puppy and one of the famed Clydesdales.
Straddling the bridge between a teaser and an outright pre-game release of its commercial is Mars Chocolate North America which provided a taste of its Super Bowl commercial for Snickers slated to air the first quarter of the Big Game. Directed by Jim Jenkins of O Positive for BBDO New York, the teaser—a recreation of The Brady Bunch scene in which Marcia Brady is brushing her hair—stars action movie mainstay Danny Trejo as a gruff, hostile version of Marcia who doesn’t at all resemble the girl next door when she’s hungry.
The new marketing wrinkle has Snickers empowering fans to help reveal the full commercial prior to Super Bowl Sunday. Fans can ask to have the spot released early through a number of social media activities, including watching the teaser on SNICKERS YouTube, Facebook or Twitter pages, as well as liking, commenting, sharing or re-Tweeting the video from those platforms. Fans can also utilize the branded hashtag, #eatasnickers. If consumers generate 2.5 million social media engagements before kick-off on Feb. 1, Snickers had pledged at press time to show the entire 30-second spot early.
Ad lineup
PepsiCo is again sponsoring the halftime show which will feature Katy Perry. Agency Mekanism is handling the :30 lead-in to the halftime festivities.
The cola wars will remain alive as Coca-Cola is slated to run a :60. It’s believed that Wieden+Kennedy will be involved as it was in last year’s pair of :60s, including the “America the Beautiful” spot.
PepsiCo will also be prominent on another brand front with two :30s as Frito-Lay’s Doritos brings back its “Crash the Super Bowl” contest which invites consumers to come up with Big Game ads. Goodby Silverstein & Partners lends a hand to the contest which has run nine consecutive years.
Meanwhile, joining the aforementioned Nissan in the automotive ad lineup will be Kia (David&Goliath), Lexus (Walter Isaacson agency), Mercedes-Benz (Merkley & Partners), Toyota (Saatchi & Saatchi LA) and BMW. The Lexus commercial, “Make Some Noise” directed by Dave Meyers of @radical.media, was released a couple of weeks prior to the Super Bowl.
Toyota will have two ads on Super Sunday, including “How Great I Am” slated to appear in the first quarter of the Super Bowl broadcast. The ad features Team Toyota athlete, Paralympic medalist and Dancing with the Stars finalist Amy Purdy along with the iconic voice of Muhammad Ali, as part of the “One Bold Choice Leads to Another” campaign for the Toyota Camry. Toyota’s second spot will continue the conversation about bold dads. The conversation was sparked by the release of a Toyota video last week starring current and former professional football players and their children, along with a longer video that includes everyday dads.
Other Super Bowl returnees include McDonald’s via Leo Burnett; Turbo Tax (Intuit) out of Wieden+Kennedy, Portland, Ore.; Squarespace from Wieden+Kennedy New York; GoDaddy, with its 11th straight year of Super Bowl advertising, now via Barton F. Graf 9000, NY; Nationwide, which hasn’t been on the Super Bowl since 2007; and Dove Men+Care (Unilever) which was last on the Big Game in 2010.
Among the first-time Super Bowl advertisers are Skittles via DDB Chicago, Carnival cruise lines out of BBDO Atlanta, Mophie, a phone charging and accessories company, with creative from Deutsch LA, web development platform Wix.com with a spot from director Frank Samuel via his company Committee LA, Avocados From Mexico via GSD&M, and Loctite, the maker of Super Glue, out of Fallon Minneapolis.
