What lessons can marketers learn from this year's Super Bowl?
- 16 February 2024
It's one of the biggest events in the advertising calendar. According to Nielsen, 202.4 million tuned in to watch at least part of this year's Super Bowl game, which makes it the most watched US TV broadcast since the 1969 moon landing.
The Super Bowl has transcended its status as a high-profile sporting event to become the ultimate cultural phenomenon. The ads, the halftime show, and all the other trending moments have become just as important as the game itself.
Taylor Swift's highly anticipated attendance to watch boyfriend Travis Kelce certainly took a lot of the attention. Meanwhile, Michael Cera emerged as an unexpected influencer in the realm of skincare, and Beyoncé, true to form, broke the internet (again).
But what hit the marketing sweet spot this year (or missed the mark), and what lessons can we take away, even without a $7m budget? Industry experts give their take on this year's game.
Great social listening is your secret weapon
Carly Osman-Holme, Founder of Sprowt
A couple of weeks ago, the CeraVe rumour mill was spinning. An influencer had spotted Micheal Cera defacing bottles of CeraVe in a chemist by signing bottles and adding a sticker of his face. This was followed by lots of random sightings of the actor with the products, and he appeared to take credit for the development of the brand.
To anyone outside the beauty world, the whole thing seemed quite bizarre, but actually, this was surfacing a long-standing Reddit speculation that Michael Cera was, in fact, a large unnamed owner in the highly successful, often incognito beauty brand. Something that CeraVe has always vehemently denied.
Any other year, the involvement of CeraVe in the Super Bowl would have been questionable, but given the spike in popularity in the game thanks to a certain Taylor Swift, it made brilliant sense.
I think there are two big lessons that we can take away from the campaign:
The power of a story behind an ad to ensure that it lives well beyond a media spot. It was reported that 400 influencers were involved in the pre-game seeding of the campaign, alongside huge amounts of press coverage - generating views in the hundreds of millions.
Understand your audience, who they are, what they're listening to, what they are saying about your brand and what they are consuming. This can lead to amazingly brilliant insights that can involve your brand in the conversation.
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