A Healthy Super Bowl Campaign Requires A Strong Dose Of Digital

Just like a doctor would caution against eating from only one food group, a healthy, cross-channel media mix is needed for brand marketing during the Super Bowl as well.

A Healthy Super Bowl Campaign Requires A Strong Dose Of Digital

A 2015 Buffalo Bills vs. Jacksonville Jaguars game streamed on Yahoo had 15.2 million unique viewers. During last year’s Super Bowl, CBS set a new streaming record with an average of 1.4 million viewers per minute tuning into the game. This season, Twitter debuted its Thursday Night Football package, drawing upward of 3 million viewers per game.

All along, advertising during the Super Bowl broadcast is becoming an increasingly high-risk proposition for brands, with an asking price for a 30-second Super Bowl television ad upward of $5 million.

Given the viewership and rate card analysis, there’s clear value in brands using digital to supplement or even replacing a broadcast Super Bowl ad campaign strategy. However, figuring out how to best leverage digital for a brand before, during, and after the Big Game isn’t always apparent. That’s where my “Dr. Digital” alter ego comes in. I examined big data insights of recent Super Bowl ad studies to come up with a prescription as to how brands can more effectively use digital in their Super Bowl campaigns.

Here are the results of my virtual house call.

• A Stanford study looking at nearly 200 media markets over the course of six Super Bowls found that advertisers that air an ad during the Super Bowl when a major competitor doesn’t see a ROI of between 150% to 170% in the eight weeks following the game. However, if a competitor also advertises, the brand sees no profit gain to offset the cost of the ad. With soft drinks being the most notable example of this phenomena, the lesson is if a competing brand is already investing in a Super Bowl ad during the broadcast, advertising during the game on digital channels is a more cost-efficient way to reach a relevant and engaged audience.

• A 2015 Genesis Media survey found that roughly 75% of respondents couldn’t remember a Super Bowl ad in the last year. Indeed, while advertising during the Super Bowl offers brands unequaled scale, it doesn’t guarantee recollection without repeated exposure. Given the majority of the audience is going to also be on their second-screen devices (smartphones and tablets) while watching the game, a robust cross-channel digital campaign during and immediately follow the Super Bowl will help keep a brand’s ad top of mind for the intended audience, as well as reach those consumers who are streaming the game only.

• The Super Bowl is one of those events that, for advertisers, demonstrates how having creative that inspires the audience to laugh or has positive messaging is more important than most other times. According to Ace Metrix, Super Bowl ads attempt to use humor 50% of the time compared with ads using humor about 20% of the time otherwise. Of course, what’s considered funny is often subjective. Running Super Bowl ads online in the lead-up to the Big Game could allow brands to A/B test their comedic chops and make sure their jokes resonate.

• Nielsen has found that time spent on YouTube more than doubled among adults 18 and older in 2016 compared with 2015. Google also announced that a Mobile Strike Super Bowl ad featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger, which was viewed 100 million-plus times, was its most viewed ad of 2016. Clearly, augmenting a Super Bowl campaign with a strong presence using digital video across platforms is more important than ever for brands to extend the reach and engagement of their campaigns.

• According to a 2015 study by Scott C. Purvis, president of consulting firm G&R, 89.1% of all the social mentions around Super Bowl ads happened within an 11-day period, beginning seven days before the Big Game and extending three days after. A recommendation for brands would be to plan to activate their digital campaigns, with a heavy emphasis on digital video and social, within that time window to take advantage of the audience’s mindset and insights garnered from their digital engagement.

Just like a doctor would caution against eating from only one food group, a healthy, cross-channel media mix is needed for brand marketing during the Super Bowl as well. While an ad during the actual broadcast might be the flashiest part of a Super Bowl campaign, a smart, targeted approach that includes a strategic combination of digital and broadcast will yield the most effective Super Bowl campaign activation for brands.