The Super Bowl maintains its advertising relevance in an increasingly fragmented media landscape because it delivers something increasingly rare: A massive, diverse audience engaged in a shared cultural moment.
"I think the Super Bowl may be the only event left where you have such a large and diverse audience all tuning in at the same time," said our analyst Blake Droesch. "For better or worse, the Super Bowl still maintains its relevancy. And in a culture where the rest has melted away, it's just become even more important for advertisers."
This scarcity of attention makes the Super Bowl particularly valuable, especially as other major cultural events like award shows have lost viewership and cultural relevance. The NFL's rising popularity has further cemented the Super Bowl's position as advertising's premier showcase.
Beyond the 30-second spot: The new Super Bowl marketing playbook
Modern Super Bowl marketing requires a comprehensive strategy that extends well beyond the game itself, with brands needing to think about their presence before, during, and after the event.
"Brands should approach the Super Bowl the way my college-aged daughter approaches a weekend night out, which is basically, there is pre-gaming, there's the event itself, and there's the after party," said our analyst Paul Verna. "The lifecycle of a Super Bowl ad is now very much about the before, the buildup, generating buzz, teasing it."
This extended approach allows brands to maximize their investment, which can reach $8 million for a 30-second spot during the game. Successful campaigns now incorporate:
- Pre-game activations to build anticipation
- In-moment engagement across multiple platforms
- Post-game extensions to maintain momentum
- Social media strategies to amplify reach
Alternative approaches for brands with smaller budgets
Not every brand can afford the multi-million dollar price tag of a Super Bowl commercial, but there are still effective ways to participate in the cultural conversation.
"Every brand feels a need to participate in this event in some form or fashion," Droesch explained. "There are all different types of ways to approach it... influencer activations, ways in which you can sort of approach the buzz that's taking place around the actual game itself."
Some of the most memorable Super Bowl marketing moments have come from brands that spent little or nothing on traditional advertising. Verna pointed to Oreo's famous "You can still dunk in the dark" tweet during the 2013 Super Bowl power outage as a prime example of opportunistic, low-cost marketing that generated massive attention.
For brands with limited budgets, creativity and authenticity are more important than spending power.
"If you can't afford that Super Bowl spot, the emphasis is really on being creative and how are you going to stand out, not trying to just have a sort of lackluster paid media effort around the event,” said Droesch.
Measuring Super Bowl marketing success
When it comes to measuring the impact of Super Bowl marketing efforts, traditional ROI metrics may not tell the full story.
"I don't see the Super Bowl as an opportunity to be in a kind of direct response mode or thinking about attribution specifically," Verna said. "I think you're really thinking about putting your brand out there, generating conversation, and again, playing that long game."
Immediate metrics like social media buzz, press coverage, and being part of the next-day conversation are important indicators of success. However, the true value often comes from the long-term brand building that comes from participating in a cultural moment of this magnitude.
"When we think about the truly iconic brands today, part of the reason they are so iconic to us is because they've been in the Super Bowl for generations now," Verna added.
The Super Bowl offers a rare opportunity for brands to be sincere in their messaging in a way that resonates with viewers.
"We live in such a pessimistic culture, but particularly around the Super Bowl and the Olympics, there is an opportunity for brands to be a little bit more sincere in their messaging in a way that is typically received pretty well by the general public,” said Droesch.
Listen to the full episode
This article was prepared with the assistance of generative AI tools to support content organization, summarization, and drafting. All AI-generated contributions have been reviewed, fact-checked, and verified for accuracy and originality by EMARKETER editors. Any recommendations reflect EMARKETER’s research and human judgment.
This was originally featured in the Retail Daily newsletter. For more retail insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.