Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey, brain Stuff, loring bog O bomb here. The Super Bowl is literally the super Bowl of advertising. Super Bowl broadcast drew a record breaking TV audience of a hundred and
fourteen point four million viewers. It's since dropped a bit to point two million viewers as of twenty nineteen, but still there is no other United States televised event that even comes close to the drawing power of the Big Game, making it the ultimate platform for advertisers to pitch their pickup trucks, beer, and misogynist web hosting services. Exactly how much is it worth to them? Up to five point
six million dollars. That's the highest going rate for a single thirty second commercial during twenties Super Bowl fifty four broadcast on Fox. But five million is only the tip of the iceberg. Most Super Bowl advertisers drain their budgets on c g I, talking animals and big name celebrity endorsements, making a real cost of producing a Super Bowl ad closer to thirty million dollars. But how is it possible that spending thirty million dollars in thirty seconds is a
brilliant marketing plan? For that price, you could buy sixty commercials at five hundred thousand dollars a pop during the highest rated shows on television. Does the Super Bowl offer a super return on investment that can't be matched by mere mortal TV broadcasts? There's some serious math involved in
answering that question. Marketing Professor's Wesley Hartman of the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Daniel Clapper of Berlin's Humboldt University conducted an in depth economic analysis of the return on investment of Super Bowl ads, and their results seemed to confirm what Madison Avenue has been selling for years. Super Bowl ads deliver a significant boost in revenue between ten to fifteen percent per household in the eight weeks following the broadcast. That's an r o I of a
hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy. Hartman and Clapper focused their research on beer and soda brands that advertised during multiple re Bowls. The researchers compared TV ratings information from more than fifty U S markets with detailed beer and soda sales data from stores in those same geographical areas. When Budweiser and Pepsi ran ads, during the Super Bowl. It was like dropping a fat stone in a pond, with the ripple effect boosting sales for weeks
to come. Some Super Bowl advertisers don't even have to wait for the ripple effect. Remember go daddy dot Com, the aforementioned controversial web hosting company. The Monday after running its twelve Super Bowl ad in which a supermodel kisses a nerd, Go daddy dot Com recorded its best sales day ever. So case closed, five million or even thirty million dollars on thirty seconds is money well spent, ah, if it were only that simple. Like all good stories,
this one has a twist. It turns out that the Super Bowl boost only goes into effect if a single beer or soda brand advertises during the game. If a competitor also places an ad, those gains become losses. The researchers call it a class prisoner's dilemma. Here's how it works. If, for example, both Coke and Pepsi do not advertise during the Super Bowl, they will both still earn over a billion dollars in profit over the eight weeks following the game.
If either Coke or Pepsi advertises but not both, the brand that advertises gets a twenty seven million bump in profit. But if both Coke and Pepsi advertised during the same game, each brand earns eighty million dollars less than if they hadn't advertised at all. So to advertise or not to advertise, According to Hartman and Clapper's calculations, for industries with just two or three major players, you might get a better
payoff by setting out the Super Bowl. But again, their research focused exclusively on beer and soda, not trucks, insurance, shoes, restaurants, and all the other stuff pedaled during the Super Bowl. And let's not forget that advertising is not just about immediate boosts and revenue. It's also about brand recognition. There's no bigger stage to debut your brand. Then the Super Bowl survey, secent of Americans said that they looked forward to the Super Bowl more for the commercials than for
the actual football game. The ads not only played during the game, but are reposted online and shared via social media. A great Super Bowl ad really can make your brand, and a bad one can break it. Let's take a moment to appreciate arguably the worst Super Bowl commercial ever in the Startups Shoe retailer Just for Feet hired ad agencies ATTACHEE and SATTACHEE to produce an unforgettable spot for
the Big Game, and that's exactly what they did. The commercial, which depicts four white guys in a humby hunting down and drugging an African barefoot runner and then fitting his unconscious body with shoes which he hates, is certainly unforgettable. Just for Feet ended up suing's attache and Attache for ten million dollars and then filing for bankruptcy a few
months later. While the discovery of accounting fraud was the main reason, you can bet that Super Bowl ad didn't help the bottom line, and that's whe a return on investment. Today's episode was written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production of iHeart Radios
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