Who is in The Super Bowl?
Sure there are a lot of great players and teams in the Super Bowl. And as much as I enjoy watching football, I really enjoy the halftime show and the ads in this game.
The Super Bowl commercials cost north of $5 million each or >$160,000 per second. In 1973, the average Super Bowl commercial cost only $100,000.
The newly completed U.S. Bank Stadium in Downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. The stadium will host SUPER BOWL LII.
This year’s list of advertisers is very familiar:
- Hyundai
- M&Ms
- Doritos
- Bud Light
- Avocados from Mexico
- Groupon
- Stella Artois
Is it worth it? Some of the greatest brands have made the Super Bowl their home and some of their messages have become infinitely famous from Monster.com’s “When I Grow Up” ad to Apple’s “1984” ad. Would the “Mean Joe Greene” Coca-Cola commercial really have caught on if it hadn’t aired in the Super Bowl? And would “Wassup?” have been such a meme and used eight years later without the super audience? It’s the biggest audience amassed for one event, so it is bound to make special things happen when humor, emotion, messaging and brand align.
Is it worth it knowing that nearly 20% say they watch the Super Bowl for the commercials? No ad skipping here.
Is it worth it when the talk value the next day is almost as powerful as the actual ad running? Social media without the media. “Did you see that PuppyMonkeyBaby ad, dude?” Why yes, tell me about it again. Just don’t be caught saying, “Dilly dilly.”
People have been debating the value of Super Bowl ads since Super Bowl 1. It’s the world’s biggest stage, so it is a place where the biggest brands play. Let’s just hope the Russians don’t find a way to hack into it.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.