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.

Radio Advances on Digital Opportunities

With digital media taking over the advertising world, people might think that the traditional mediums are soon to be a thing of the past. Borrell Associates and the Radio Advertising Bureau discovered that instead of digital booting out the “old” radio, they may in fact be supporting one another.

The radio industry has an opportunity to step into the digital world. Through this, they’re able to capture radio ad dollars and digital ad dollars. Borrell Associates reports that the radio industry raised its digital ad revenues by 11.4% last year bringing their total digital ad dollars to over $550 million.

The study shows a strong correlation between the rising revenues and the opinions of radio employees. 250 managers and 2,704 stations were surveyed on their attitudes about digital revenues in the radio world. It is no surprise that as ad dollars from digital media rise, the attitudes of radio managers also become more positive.

Today, only 16% of radio sales managers believe that radio sales suffer due to reps being forced to sell digital advertising. That percentage has dropped significantly from 2014 when over half of radio sales managers felt like radio sales were suffering.

I believe this is a huge opportunity for the radio industry. Instead of remaining stagnant in their traditional ways, radio has opened its doors and embraced the digital platform. If history has taught us one thing it’s that change is inevitable and if you refuse to adapt, you’ll surely be left in the dust.

Facebook Continues to Top the Facebook Charts

eMarketer reports on three monumental achievements Facebook looks to attain in 2016. For the first time, Facebook will have over half (50.3%) of the United States population as active users. eMarketer predicts that 162.9 million users will logon to their Facebook account at least once a month throughout the year. Facebook-owned Instagram is second on the list followed by Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr.

Second, Facebook continues to be on top when it comes to social ad spending. Facebook will earn 73.4% ($9.86 billion) of US social network ad dollars during 2016 while Twitter settles for a distant second by only capturing 13.8% ($1.86 billion).

Lastly, eMarketer projects the increase of mobile users to continue rising. “This year, 86% of US Facebook users will access the platform through a phone, with that figure climbing to 91% in 2019”. Undoubtedly, this will increase the percentage of ad dollars that are received through the mobile platform. While Facebook increases their users on mobile devices, Twitter still trumps the mobile scene with 92.3% of their users accessing their accounts via mobile device.