Super Bowl by the numbers

By: Kátai Ildikó Date: 2021. 02. 08. 10:59

Super Bowl LV ads highlight marketers’ disconnect with reality. Advertisers strained to deliver a message with mass appeal or even to entertain — with a few notable exceptions — on what’s supposed to be their biggest night. Sport proved to engage mass of people. Best and worst ads are ranked too.

Super Bowl számokban

We’ve covered the Super Bowl phenomenon in several articles. More than 100 million people around the world were curious about the big game according to the Marketing Dive analysis. At a rally in Tampa, Florida, on Sunday night, February 7, host Tampa Bay Buccaneers trounce the Kansas City Chiefs 31 to 9.

Quick Maths

Besides the number of unpaid spots from CBS and NFL there were 57 ads shown during th ebig game presenting 45 unique brands. 5,6 million USD was the price of a 30-second ad, 300K USD was the price of a digital ad according to Kantar.

Viewership for the game was down 15% from last year.
32 million households tuned in this year, down from 37.6 million in 2020 by the report of Samba TV.

Viewership of Super Bowl ads on YouTube, based on the numbers of the videosharing website itself, during the game rose over 70% from last year.

Among the 26 freshman advertisers there were CPG brands like Huggies, Dr. Squatch, Hellmann’s , Oatly, Cutwater Spirits, Bud Light Seltzer Lemonade, Michelob Ultra Organic Seltzer and Rockstar Energy.

The most common category of ads were from financial service firms, a mix of insurance and tax prep help. There were 12 spots in the category, making up 14% of the total paid ads.

These four categories contributed 50% of all spots in Super Bowl LV: financial, media and entertainment, technology and food from source: MediaRadar.

Winning brands by sales on Amazon

Estimated % growth in market share of their category based on sales on Amazon during game time compared to January average:

Amazon eladások angol

Worst and the best 5 ads

Oatly, the oat milk brand’s Super Bowl debut — which features its CEO singing an offbeat song about its product —proved controversial. The spot is dead last in USA Today’s Ad Meter by 4,00 average rating. Oatly’s ad was likely the winner of the night’s “so bad it’s probably good category”. But being intentionally annoying to generate buzz is a risky strategy, especially for an upstart brand.

Top 5 ads from USA Today Ad Meter (by sentiment):

Social Media

4M mentions of Super Bowl itself (as of Monday 9 a.m. ET). 7.5M mentions for all things Super Bowl (ads, pregame poet and related programming).

State Farm (49K) and Jeep (47K) continue to be the most discussed ads of the night. Cheetos and Doritos are in a dead heat for third and fourth most talked about ads (20K).according to Talkwalker.

On Twitter, Mountain Dew (38%) and Pepsi (27%) achieved a six-digit mention number, according to Brandwatch’s observation.

The funniest Super Bowl commercials can be viewed here: