Super Bowl Ad Prices Doubled in a Decade
By Felix Richter, January 2017 <Article Source>
When Super Bowl LI kicks off on February 5, the NFL championship won’t be the only title that’s on the line. With more than a hundred million viewers glued to the TV in the U.S. alone, marketers and advertisers will compete for the unofficial title “Most Memorable Super Bowl Spot”.
Since 2007, the average rate for a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl broadcast has risen from $2.4 million to $4.8 million, making it by far the most expensive time slot U.S. television has to offer – a 30-second spot during the Academy Award ceremony is less than half the price. It's a price that brands are willing to pay though. Last year, Super Bowl TV ad spend in the U.S. amounted to $445 million when including pre- and post-game programming. According to Kantar Media that is roughly equivalent to the combined ad revenue of the four major broadcast networks in an average week.
In return for their investment, advertisers not only get a huge audience (111.9 million viewers in 2016) but an audience that sticks around: during the 2013 Super Bowl, only 0.7 percent of the audience tuned away during commercial breaks. The average tuneaway rate during regular TV programming is five times as high. Consumers tend to pay special attention to Super Bowl ads, as agencies typically try to honour the prestigious occasion with especially witty and often funny ads.
This chart shows TV ad rates during the TV broadcast of the Super Bowl in the United States from 2007 to 2016.
