BizReview Ep4: The Economics and Legacy of Super Bowl adverts

Americans clearly have the weirdest habits one can possibly think of - not using the metric system, being obsessed with BeReal, drowning voluntarily in student debt for lifetimes perhaps, and well… voting for Joe Biden. One such weird habit of theirs is watching Rugby (they’ll tell you it’s football but we all know it isn't.) The NFL has evolved as one of the largest sporting leagues in the world over the past two decades, growing its revenue from approximately $6 billion in 2004 to $18 billion in 2022. What outlines the biggest selling point of the NFL is the Super Bowl - the annual championship game which is the biggest single-day sports event in the world, generating billions of dollars worth of consumer spending, insanely high television rating points and adrenaline rushes globally. 

Recently, the Super Bowl went viral for two reasons - one more relevant and important than the other (No, we don't talk about Taylor and Kelce here.) A 30 second commercial by rapper Kanye West took the internet by storm. The zero-budget advertisement attempting to relaunch his lifestyle brand Yeezy post the Adidas controversy started off with “Hey y’all, this is Ye, and this is my commercial … and since we spent all the money on the commercial spot we actually - we didn’t spend any money on the actual commercial. But the idea is I want you to go to Yeezy.com” This novel take on marketing did bear fruit, generating 294,357 orders and $19.3 million in sales, and reached the top of the Billboard rankings across over a 100 countries. 

What made the headlines and turned heads, however, was the fact that this thirty second commercial spot at the Super Bowl LVIII cost Kanye & Co. an insane amount of … (wait for it) … $7 million. Despite such mind boggling price tags being attached to advert spaces, each commercial spot gets sold every year, at exorbitantly high incremental YoY rates - but why? What exactly is the legacy of advertisements at the Super Bowl forms the topic of today’s episode. 

With families all across America ‘celebrating’ the Superbowl together in their living rooms with their eyeballs glued to their television screens, brands have always found this time of the year the best time to launch products or make statements most effectively (alas everything comes at a cost, and this at a slightly… slightly high one.)

As the viewership numbers have kept hitting new peaks, constantly crossing a modest 100+ million average real-time viewers, advertisers have typically used commercials during the Super Bowl as a means of building awareness for their products and services among this wide audience, while also trying to generate buzz around the ads themselves so they may receive additional exposure, such as becoming a viral video. 

The prestige and prominence of airing a commercial during the Super Bowl has carried an increasingly high price over the past several years. The average cost of a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl increased from $37,500 at Super Bowl I (1967) to around $2.2 million at the Super Bowl XXXIV in 2000. By Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, the cost had doubled to around $4.5 million, and by Super Bowl LVI in 2022, the cost had reached up to $7 million for a 30-second slot. 

The iconicity and legacy of Super Bowl commercials began in 1970, when at the Super Bowl IV, Chicago Bears linebacker Dick Butkus endorsed Prestone, a brand of antifreeze with the tag-line “Because plugging holes is my business.” 

Xerox - Monks 

At Super Bowl XI in 1977, Xerox aired an advertisement entitled "Monks"; starring Jack Eagle as Brother Dominic—a monk discovering that he could create copies of a manuscript using a new Xerox photocopier. Y&R New York's CEO Leslie Sims described "Monks" as being the "first viral ad," explaining that it "was the first commercial that got people to request to see it again on TV." To mark its 40th anniversary, a remake of the "Monks" ad premiered in January 2017 (although not as a Super Bowl ad), which updated its premise to feature the company's modern product line.

Coca Cola - Hey Kid, Catch 

“Hey Kid, Catch” created by McCann-Erickson, contains a tightly constructed story arc, written by Penny Hawkey: after a hard fought football game, the hulking Pittsburgh Steelers Defensive Tackle Joe Greene limps into a stadium tunnel to lick his wounds in the locker room. He is tired and bloodied. His jersey has been ripped off his shoulder pads. A young boy timidly approaches the football star and offers him a bottle of Coca-Cola to soften the blow of what has obviously been a hard day.

“You want my Coke?” the boy asks.

Greene, obviously in pain, shakes his head no.

“Really, you can have it,” the boy insists.

Finally, Greene relents and takes a long swig while the boy turns away, muttering, “See you around.”

Then comes one of the greatest payoff scenes in advertising: Mean Joe Greene, refreshed by a long swig from the Coke, turns toward the boy and gently calls out, “Hey Kid.” The boy turns around, his face revealing that universal look of hope of any child who worships a sports hero. Greene does something wholly unexpected: He smiles — and a genuinely warm smile at that. Then he returns the boy’s gesture by tossing him his jersey. (Source: Medium)

The ad would win a Clio Award, spawn a made-for-TV movie on NBC entitled The Steeler and the Pittsburgh Kid, and be re-made for other markets with local athletes. In a 2011 poll by Advertising Age, readers named "Hey Kid, Catch!" as the best Super Bowl commercial of all time.

Apple - 1984

All of us have read about Steve Jobs’ genius and at least once, quite literally, drooled over his genius haven’t we? As Apple’s 1984 commercial at the super bowl recently hit 40 years since it was first aired, the New York times wrote an article titled “40 Years Ago, This Ad changed the Super Bowl forever.” It is widely accepted that 1984 is the single-most iconic television advertisement ever, and played a critical role in establishing the Super Bowl as TV’s biggest commercial showcase. 

At Super Bowl XVIII, Apple Computer broadcast an advertisement for its Macintosh Computer entitled "1984", created by the agency Chiat/Day and directed by Ridley Scott. The advertisement, which incorporated elements inspired by the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, featured a woman wearing track-and-field clothing (including orange pants and a white shirt branded with an image of the Macintosh) sprinting into a large auditorium and hurling a large hammer into a screen (displaying a large Big Brother-like figure speaking to a massive assembly of drone-like people in the audience), concluding with the message "On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won’t be like '1984.'"

While several other platforms have emerged and the definition and use-cases of marketing have changed over several years, the Super Bowl continues to be the unmatched king of the game and serves as the benchmark for corporate legacy and pride.