No Coca-Cola or Budweiser, fewer movie trailers and an influx of tech companies means a different mix of Super Bowl ads this year.
But even with first-time advertisers like UberEats, Chipotle and Robinhood, 2021 marks the first time in over a decade where the cost of a Super Bowl ad dipped year-over-year.
The average cost for a 30-second Super Bowl spot was $2.7 million in 2010, and had steadily risen until this year’s $100,000 drop to $5.5 million.
“There was some uncertainty on whether there’d be a Super Bowl for part of the season and that had some advertisers [questioning] whether to make the commitment,” Alfredo Troncoso, Kantar Media’s vice president of global brand & marketing ROI, told Front Office Sports.
In addition to the $183,000 per second cost, brands this year had to contend with higher production costs and delays related to the COVID-19 crisis.
For companies like Scotts Miracle-Gro, who purchased a Super Bowl ad for the first time in the company’s history this year, a spot during Sunday’s game presents a way to capitalize on momentum gained during the pandemic.
“We got about 20 million new customers in COVID time last year, and the goal is to keep them and grow the market,” CEO Jim Hagedorn told CNBC.
