The Super Bowl is always high stakes for advertisers \u2014 but this year expect more hair-raising, goosebump-inducing and heart-churning than ever before from senior marketers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Marketers don\u2019t have the same enthusiasm to spend big on ads around the game like they have done in the past. Some like those from Toyota, BMW and Nissan are sitting it out entirely. They\u2019d rather not blow a sizable portion of their annual ad budget on the event given the automotive category \u2014 and many others for that matter \u2014 are still dogged by the economy and supply issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There will be those that think otherwise, of course. Pepsi, AB InBev, General Motors, Netflix and DraftKings to name a few. But there are many others that can\u2019t afford to go big or go home around the event. Instead, they\u2019re having to be smarter about how they advertise around the game.<\/p>\n
State Farm appears to have taken this to heart. They\u2019re skipping its usual Super Bowl ad<\/a> this year in favor of a TikTok campaign with social media personality Khaby Lame alongside brand spokesperson Jake. A hashtag challenge like the one at the heart of this campaign costs around $150,000 for six days. On the flipside, a TV ad during the game would\u2019ve set the same marketers back around $7 million.<\/p>\n \u201cThe conversations we\u2019re having with our brand partners makes me feel like spending on social media is growing around this year\u2019s Super Bowl in spite of the economy,\u201d said Mike Heller, co-founder of sports marketing agency Talent Resources Sports. \u201cNow, that could be down to the fact that we\u2019re a boutique agency, not one of the big holding companies, so marketers are coming to us more so now than in previous years when they were doing these big ad campaigns.\u201d<\/p>\n No wonder marketers are on edge.\u00a0<\/p>\n They can\u2019t afford to go for broke on brand awareness alone. The ads have to work harder. For instance, a lot of the campaigns digital marketing agency Influential is working on for the game have a component that can be measured; so something like a way to measure in-store sales or foot traffic into a QSR or online sales. Clearly, the stakes are higher for a lot of marketers this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAdvertising on the Super Bowl won\u2019t be what it should be or could be this weekend \u2014 at least when compared to previous years,\u201d said Ryan Detert, CEO of Influential.<\/p>\n What he means is the ads might not feel as big as they have previously. That\u2019s not to say that advertising during the Super Bowl has slowed down by any means, it\u2019s that the opportunity for distribution across social channels continues to grow.<\/p>\n For example, there\u2019s a lot of thought going into how to mememify memorable, quirky, fun moments around the game. That\u2019s the view of the six marketers who flagged to Digiday that this would be a key task for those ad execs in social media war rooms for the event. It\u2019s not a new tactic by any means. The whole point of war rooms was to essentially create memes, or those cultural items capable of spreading across the internet quickly. This year, however, that content won\u2019t necessarily prioritize text as much. Not now that Twitter isn\u2019t as central to Super Bowl plans as it once was. Rather, they\u2019re going to focus more on images, short clips and livestreaming.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFor us, Twitter has been deprioritized in the overall scope of the Downy campaign this year, but it\u2019s still important to be present as people use Twitter to search, react and connect in real time,\u201d said Jennifer Brotman, group account director at Saatchi & Saatchi.<\/p>\n Brands are showing up for the Super Bowl on platforms, but via organic content instead of paid advertising, which it will use to nudge audiences back to that organic content.<\/p>\n Look at how many advertisers are partnering with creators around the event: The NFL is working with Emmanuel Duverneau (known as the dancing chef on TikTok, to cook players\u2019 favorite meals. Doritos is working with TikTok personality Tay Bloomer for a dance contest.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you stack up creators vs. Super Bowl commercial ad costs the numbers speak for themselves,\u201d said Krishna Subramanian, CEO of influencer marketing platform Captiv8. \u201cCreators deliver higher engagement and viewership, at a significantly lower cost making one thing evident: Creators are the most valuable advertising channel for brands.\u201d<\/p>\n To be clear, there will be those that buck this trend. Take Pepsi. It set aside more than $3 million for Twitter takeover ads on the day of the Super Bowl, per The Information.<\/a> Others, however, either don\u2019t have that sort of cash to spend or if they do, are having to put it to work in more places. In fairness, this decentralization of online marketing, especially social media, was already happening. But the downturn has made it all the more acute.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a time when the trending hashtag on a social media platform was the creme de la creme for marketers who wanted a big Super Bowl moment they could own,\u201d said Detert. \u201cClearly that\u2019s still important. But more marketers also want more user-generated content created this year. That\u2019s why there\u2019s more interest in TikTok this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Time will tell whether this \u201cless could be more\u201d approach to Super Bowl advertising works out. Nevertheless, what little evidence there is from the campaigns around last year\u2019s game suggests that working with creators and user-generated content specifically could pay off, if done correctly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n