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Marketing Cruncher

Friday 3 February 2012

The Daily Graph: Cost of a Super Bowl Ad

It's the most wonderful time of the year... for whichever network is airing the Super Bowl. This year, that would be NBC, which sold its 30-second ad spots for an average of $ 3.5 million each. The top price that the network managed to get for a spot in Sunday's game was a whopping $ 4 million.

Here's a
graph from Business Insider that shows just how much the cost of Super Bowl advertising has skyrocketed in real terms since the event was first held in 1967.




So What?

Although the prices slightly dip during recessions, the cost of a Super Bowl ad has steadily risen since the very beginning. In 1967, the first Super Bowl ads cost just $ 40,000. Comparing that to this year's hefty $ 4 million price tag, the compound annual growth rate of the price of Super Bowl ads for the last 45 years is 10.78%. That's a lot higher than the historical rate of inflation in the US.

This just goes to show the increasing power that the Super Bowl has over American advertisers in its ability to demand substantially higher prices for its ads year after year. Indeed there is something to be said about the 111 million viewers who tuned in to last year's Super Bowl, a number that marks the highest ever audience for a US TV show.


But I think there's something more to it.
According to Nielsen, the Super Bowl is economically resilient, remaining relatively stable despite the fluctuation in the prices of primetime TV spots in the same quarter. I think the biggest reason for this is that the Super Bowl is in fact an American cultural institution. It has become such a monolithic presence in the American way of life - a yearly ritual that demands the attention of every American. To miss it would be a sin.

Consequently, some of the most successful Super Bowl ads are ones that truly resonate with the American way of life, so much so that the ads themselves become ingrained into the culture.

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