30 Second Super Bowl Commercials Will Cost An Obscene Amount Of Money This Year

Carls Jr Commercial

Last year the average cost of a commerical during the Superbowl was a whopping $4.5 million.   The season before that?  $4 million.  And in case you’re looking at your history, they reached the $1 million mark back in 1985.   The cost of a commercial during Super Bowl I, back in 1967 was just $37,500.  When adjusted for inflation, that comes out to just $268,000.  From the looks of it, costs are going to spike yet again this coming year.

Why is it so pricey?  It’s pretty simple.  Each year the Superbowl is the most watched program on television.  Other than the finale of Mash, the Superbowl continues to bring in millions of viewers.  Fans around the country (and world) gather around their TVs, host parties, and eat enormous amounts of food while watching the most anticipated sporting event of the season.

On average over 100 million people tune in to watch the big game.  And while many of those people aren’t even NFL fans, that sure doesn’t bother the league.  In fact some people go the entire Superbowl party without a clue who’s even playing.  Many times people just want to watch the commercials.

Since advertisers know they are going to have an unprecedented number of people watching, they tend to put their best foot forward and the quality of the commercials tend to be above the rest.  So entertaining that they’re more watched than regular schedule programming.   This year? For Super Bowl 50, advertisers will pay a record setting $5 million for a 30 second spot.  It may sound like an obscene number, and it is, but there’s a explanation.

According to NBC executive Seth Winter, the actual value of the commercials to the company’s buying them is $10 million: “We did an analysis around last year’s Super Bowl that Fox ran, and our analysis showed that with all of the video distribution pre- and post-game, the value of the PR, the value of all of that which advertisers used to activate around their investment that it reached a very solid good foundation number of $10 million.”

Is this even possible?  Yes, when you include for contributing factors which are:  television views (100+ million every year),  social media, media coverage and brand recall (which is incredibly high for Super Bowl commercials).

Commercials are no longer just for watching during the game.  Often times the commercials are released prior to the game.  Media outlets run polls so fans can vote for their favorites.  And just to prove their staying power, just peer back to Superbowls of the past.  Will anyone ever forget the Budweiser frogs or the first Godaddy commercial?  Probably not.   “Wassssssupppp!”

Written by Worthly