See a Super Bowl ad in a theater near you

In the few weeks between the New Year and Valentine’s Day, advertisers and Americans alike look forward to one major event- The Super Bowl. For some, they watch it for the sports, others for the entertainers, and lastly, for the commercials. If the highly anticipated commercials were released earlier than February 3^rd, would it take the fun out of it? Kia Motors America apparently doesn’t think so.

According to MediaPost, Kia is going to release its Super Bowl commercial early in movie theaters. This will be the second year the car-maker has implemented this strategy. The ad will be released in two parts across 19,000 theaters nationwide through the NCM Media Networks. The first part will be a :15 teaser running Friday, January 25^th to lead up to the full :60 spot premier on Friday, February 1^st. The ad will run during the FirstLook pre-show program. Titled “Space Babies” the commercial will promote Kia’s 2014 Sorento CUV.

Running a Super Bowl commercial in theaters prior to the actual game has never been done before until Kia. To see the effectiveness of this strategy, NCM Media Networks and Nielsen did some post-game research from the 2012 game. People who only saw the ad during the game had a 46% unaided recall rate. For those who saw the ad in the theaters prior and on TV during the game, the unaided recall rate increased to 70%.

What you can take from this is a strong strategy can pay off. Letting people see your Super Bowl commercial before the event can help generate awareness and anticipation.