Spending Big Bucks on the Big Game

America has fully embraced the Super Bowl and enhanced it so that it’s no longer solely about football. Instead, viewers can expect to see an extravagant halftime show and commercials that make them cry one second and laugh the next. Audiences can even flip channels and watch the adorable, and not quite as physical, Puppy Bowl.

In the same way that the Super Bowl is for the top football teams, the Super Bowl is also for the top advertisers. Why is that? Advertisers spend millions of dollars for just a few seconds at a chance to intrigue viewers. Is it worth it? Nielsen Scarborough did a study to get to the bottom of what drives advertisers to spend so much money on a mere 30 second ad.

Nielsen proclaims that the Super Bowl reaches 58% of U.S. adult men and 39% of U.S. adult women stretching across all ethnicities, geographic areas, and income levels. This gives advertisers an opportunity to reach over half the men in the country and a still large percentage of the women.

Reoccurring advertisers like beer companies and automobiles are some of the expected advertisers with 60% of viewers being beer drinkers and 56% of viewers being in the market for a new vehicle.

Rookies to the Super Bowl ad game this year include Apartments.com and Paypal, however they are sure to make an impact. Nielsen reports that 42% of households reached by the Super Bowl are home renters with 49% of adults planning to move within the next year. Over half (55%) of Super Bowl viewers are habitual internet spenders making Paypal's advertising investment a win.

So, I think the driving factor in convincing advertisers to spend the big bucks during the big game is centered on the large captive audience that they can reach. Not only is the audience large, but it is interested in what they have to offer. One could argue that the advertisements are talked about more than the actual game and with that comes a huge amount of added value word of mouth advertising. Not to mention the ability of viewers to share, discuss, and rave about advertisements on social media.

It’s often said, “no risk, no reward”. For Super Bowl advertising, there’s definitely a risk (money) factor, however, the reward seems to be worth it for many advertisers.