Super Bowl Advertising in a Pandemic
Presenter(s)
Alex Carter, Courtney Childers
Abstract or Description
The Super Bowl is an annual event that showcases both the best two NFL football teams and some of the very best creative work in the advertising industry. In 2021, marketers are paying approximately $5.6 million to advertise for 30 seconds to this large, captive audience, where the ads often command as much attention as the game. In fact, the Super Bowl is the most viewed television program in American history. It has been studied as a cultural phenomenon by academic researchers for decades (Bharadwaj, Ballings & Naik, 2020; Blackford, Gentry, Harrison & Carlson, 2011; Chandraesekaran, Srinivasan& Sihi, 2018; Hartmann & Klapper, 2017; Yelkur, Tomkovick, Hofer, & Rozumalski, 2013).
Influence Central (2017) found that approximately 78% of Super Bowl viewers simultaneously engage in social media activity. In addition, a study by Salesforce (2015) found that 65% of Super Bowl viewers are “extremely” or somewhat likely” to actively interact with brands on social media platforms during the Super Bowl. Spotts, Purvis, and Patnaik (2014) found that Super Bowl advertisements were important to amplifying social conversations about brands in the 2011 and 2012 championship game.
The 2021 Super Bowl is unique as it is the first Super Bowl held during a pandemic, when many marketers have decreased ad budgets in recent months. With that, many advertisers have opted out of the game altogether, including Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, leaving open ad inventory for several first-time Super Bowl advertisers.
Using Salesforce Marketing Cloud Social Studio technology, the research team will analyze social conversations regarding Super Bowl advertising, major brands, and the impacts of COVID-19 via social listening. Social media posts will be downloaded on Sunday, February 7, and Monday, February 8, 2021 to identify key trends in conversation. Sentiment analysis via Social Studio will be used to compare to overall advertising rankings for commercials aired during Super Bowl 55.
References
Bharadwaj, Neeraj, Michel Ballings and Prasad A. Naik. (2020). Cross-media consumption: Insights from Super Bowl advertising. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 50, pp. 17-31.
Blackford, Benjamin J., James Gentry, Robert L. Harrison, and Les Carlson (2011), The prevalence and influence of the combination of humor and violence in Super Bowl commercials, Journal of Advertising Research, 40 (4), pp. 123-133.
Chandrasekaran, Deepa, Raji Srinivasan, and Debika Sihi (2018), Effects of offline ad content on online brand search: Insights from super bowl advertising, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 46 (3), pp. 403-430.
Hartmann, Wesley R. and Daniel Klapper (2017), Super Bowl ads, Marketing Science, 37 (1), pp. 143-166.
Influence Central (2017), “The biggest game in football” available at https://influencecentral.app.box.com/v/BGIF.
Salesforce (2015), Expensive commercials no longer enough: 10 stats on why the social second screen is now the Super Bowl battleground, accessed February 3, 2020, available at https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2015b/01/expensive-commercials-no-longer-enough-10-stats-on-why-the-social-second-screen-is-now-the-super-bow.html.
Spotts, Harlan, Scott C. Purvis, and Sandeep Patnaik (2014), How digital conversations reinforce Super Bowl advertising the power of earned media drives television engagement, Journal of Advertising Research, 1, DOI: 10.2501/JAR-54-4-454-468.
Yelkur, Rama, Chuck Tomkovick, Ashley Hofer, and Daniel Rozumalski (2013), Super Bowl ad likeability: Enduring and emerging predictors, Journal of Marketing Communications, 19 (1), pp. 58-80