Super Bowl Viewers watch for the commercials, just not Pepsi’s
I received a very interesting press release from Nielsen today stating that the millions upon millions of Super Bowl viewers that watch the game every year? They’re really only there for the commercials.
New York, NY – January 20, 2010 – The majority of Super Bowl viewers enjoy the game’s ads more than the action on the field, according to results of a survey released today by The Nielsen Company. Fifty-one percent of those questioned said they most enjoy the commercials that air throughout the game when compared to the Super Bowl game itself. Forty-nine percent said that they enjoy the game more than the ads. Results were based on a sample of over 25,000 households in Nielsen’s Homescan panel.
- Motion Pictures form the biggest category of ad spending, which leads to an immediate surge in online buzz for the advertised films. (via Nielsen)
“This survey reinforces the value of the Super Bowl as a marketing bonanza, featuring one of the most receptive TV audiences in the world,” said Randall Beard, executive vice president of Nielsen IAG. “With so many viewers waiting for the pitch, the pressure is on advertisers to create and place ads that will have a lasting impact.”
The poll was one of many new findings Nielsen released in a comprehensive study of the trends and effectiveness of paid Super Bowl advertising. Other Super Bowl insights uncovered by Nielsen include:- Ads that run early in the game are better remembered and better liked than those airing later in the game.
- A “winning” spot can vary depending on an advertiser’s goals and target demographics.
- Traffic to advertiser Web sites spiked on the day after last year’s Super Bowl.
- In the last five years, the biggest Super Bowl advertiser is Anheuser-Busch, which spent over $100 million on its Bud and Bud Light brands alone.
Its a pretty detailed release, but those are the highlights. All of this information makes Pepsi’s decision to not advertise during the Super Bowl all that more interesting. Pepsi was a yearly fixture at the game, so they obviously had some pull as to when their ad would appear (i.e. a premium position early on in the game). But they still thought that their advertising dollars would be better spent on internet based marketing…even when, as Nielsen reported, web traffic spiked for those sites which carried Super Bowl ads.
Premium position. A guaranteed spike in web traffic. At rates that were either equal to, or nominally higher than last year. Yet they still chose to move in a different direction. Sure, one can always make the argument that Pepsi doesn’t need to remind people of their brand; which is the goal of a lot of Super Bowl advertisers (think CareerBuilder, for example), but isn’t the “reminding of the brand” the purpose of advertising generally, barring a new product? How many Pepsi commercial have featured Pepsi or Diet Pepsi or some other drink that has already spent years embedded in the American consumer’s mind? And yet we still had and will continue to have commercials for these products…
…just not during the Super Bowl.
I, for one, can’t wait to see Pepsi’s internet marketing campaign. Sure, you can argue that the Super Bowl has lost some of its advertising luster, due to decreased ad prices and the like, but its very hard to argue that it still won’t have a enormous impact on the American consumer.
Although, if you’re in the Pepsi marketing department, you’re thinking your internet campaign will have the same, if not larger, effect.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 at 4:09 pm and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Very surprised to see folks dipping their toe in the Kobe pool as far as advertising. One of the greatest to ever play the game, he still has enough baggage that schlepping a product for someone has to be a bit of a double-edged sword, good news-bad news situation. You’d think as many folks would shy away from whatever he’s hawking as would be inclined to check it out. And “fair-weather advertiser” is certainly a legit phrase in this instance. Geez, less than a year ago he was throwing his team under the bus and backing over them…not to mention the whole ugly he said-she said, the verbal sparring with the popular Shaq Daddy, etc.
Kobe is guilty of having an affair, period! Unfortunately, for he and his wife he got caught. OMG! He that is without sin cast the first stone! If I were Kobe I’d tell Sony, Coke, Sprite, and Mc Donalds to kiss my lily white ass! (or in Kobe’s case black)
Sally (Kobe fan-Laker fan for life)