Super Bowl Advertising

Super Bowl Advertising

The Super Bowl has frequently been the most watched American television broadcast yearly. Super Bowl XLV, played in 2011, became the most-watched American television program in history with an average audience of 111 million viewers (beating only Super Bowl XLIV, which itself had taken over the #1 spot held for twenty-eight years by the final episode of M*A*S*H. The Super Bowl is also among the most watched sporting events in the world, mostly due to its North American audiences, and is second to the UEFA Champions League final as the most watched annual sporting event worldwide.

As a result of being one of the few annual events to achieve such wide viewership, many high-profile television commercials are broadcast during the game, often coming from major brands (such as Budweiser, who annually airs spots during the Super Bowl; with notable campaigns such as the Bud Bowl and the Clydesdales), and smaller or lesser-known brands seeking the exposure that can be obtained through Super Bowl advertising. However, this amount of prominence has also carried a high price: at Super Bowl XLVII in 2013, the average cost of a 30-second advertisement was around $4 million.

Super Bowl advertisements have also become a cultural phenomenon of their own; many viewers only watch the game to see the commercials, while national surveys (such as the USA Today Super Bowl Ad Meter) judge which advertisement carried the best viewer response.