$4 million for 30 seconds, the big business of Super Bowl ads

THEY'RE watched millions of times around the world - often more than the game itself. So are the massive Super Bowl ads actually worth the money?

Don Cheadle (and a llama) stars in this teaser spot for Budweiser ahead of the 2014 Super Bowl. Picture: YouTube.

WHEN there are more than 110 million people watching, the $US4 million price tag seems almost worth it for a 30-second spot on the world's biggest advertising stage, the Super Bowl.

The mecca of American football is just as popular for the brilliant ads broadcast during the game than it is for what actually happens on the field, especially for those of us who don't have a clue about gridiron.
So for every person sitting through the hours-long process of heavily padded men charging at each other there's another who's eagerly anticipating the funny or poignant or downright random ads that go with it.

When the stakes are that high, you know the ads are going to be damn good.

The pressure is always on for brands to deliver because to get to the Super Bowl, they will have shelled out big money. Like, really big. For this year's game, a 30-second spot is going to set a company back $US4 million. That's over $US130,000 per second. US network Fox, who has the broadcast rights to this year's game, had offloaded 85% of its ad inventory in early August and was completely sold out by the first week of December. The $US4 million price tag is up 70% on what it cost a decade ago, according to analysis from Kantor Media.

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The highest revenue generated from Super Bowl ad sales was in 2012 when rival network CBS made $US245 million, according to data website Statista.

And the biggest spender over the last five years has been beverage giant Anheuser-Busch InBev (Budweiser) which has paid over $US145 million for Super Bowl ad spots from 2009 to 2013. This year, multinationals Coca-Cola, Jaguar, SodaStream, Toyota, Hyundai, Pepsi, Volkswagen, Unilever, Nestle, Mars and Audi have all stumped up the fee for a cameo.

The reason the Super Bowl can still command such an uber-premium price is because in the age of increasing media fragmentation, an event which can draw in over a hundred million eyeballs is almost unheard of. This year's game is expected to beat the previous record of 113 million viewers set in 2012. With smartphones and tablets distracting TV viewers, not to mention those who just don't watch live TV anymore, the Super Bowl's ability to not just pull in viewers but actually keep their attention during the commercial breaks is like crack for advertisers desperately looking for their next fix.

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Darren Spiller, executive creative director of ad agency DDB Melbourne, said: "I don't think people would say the Super Bowl is about the ads and not the game. But in the lead-up to it and in between, the ads absolutely own it. People don't get up to get more beers. It's an event in its own right and people start talking about it weeks before the game."

And just to put into perspective what 113 million viewers means for an advertiser, it's more than four times the total population of Australia and more than a third of the US population. Even in US TV terms, the top rating series in the 2012/2013 TV season, NCIS, averaged 21 million viewers. Super Bowls are the most watched events in US TV history.

The ads around the Super Bowl have become so ingrained in the event that brands now promote their ads before the big day. Increasingly, companies are running 'teaser' campaigns days, if not weeks, before main event to generate buzz. Other brands will release their Super Bowl ads online first. Spiller gave the example of the Volkswagen 'The Force' ad from 2011 (made by creative shop Deutsch LA) which had been seeded as a teaser before the game and then went on to garner over 60 million views online from around the world (including 10 million before Super Bowl day). For a global brand like Volkswagen, the talkability of a Super Bowl ad is then spread to consumers all over the world.

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Apart from the money spent on the Super Bowl spot itself, there's also the cost of producing the ads, which often has a raft of expensive celebrity appearances (Don Cheadle, John Stamos, Laurence Fishburn, Stephen Colbert and Ben Kingsley are some to feature to this year). Chrysler's ad a few years ago with Eminem reportedly cost $US9 million to make and the car company was only allowed to air it that one time.

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But having said all that, with all the money that gets invested in that 30-second spot, the pressure is on to get it right. Spiller, who worked in the US for several years, said there are two kinds of ads that do really well for a Super Bowl audience - humour and grassroots American values. "There is massive pressure to perform," he said. "It's like performing the national anthem during the AFL grand final, everyone is watching so you better be good."