I’ve never been a football fan/football watcher myself, mainly because I didn’t really understand what people were doing when they’re playing football (I kind of get the gist of the game, but I never really know where I’m supposed to look when people are playing and I am generally confused about 90% of the football game), but I do know there is a lot of hype surrounding the SuperBowl, and I know that a lot of people are actually more interested in the commercials themselves than the SuperBowl.

So, while I cannot say much about the game itself, I do find the marketing aspect of it interesting. Last year, about 114 million people watched the SuperBowl (more than a third of the U.S. population), and apparently a 30-second ad would cost around five million dollars. That’s worth it (?) though–that’s only 4 cents per view, and in the social media age, the effect of ads can be maximized with social media exposure. If the advertisers do something novel, tell a story, show something memorable, and then come up with some sort of catchy hashtag, then potential customers/SuperBowl viewers are more likely to react to it, leading to awareness of the brand’s products and services, and of course, brand recall.

In researching online about the SuperBowl commercials, I found a few interesting facts:

• Some brands might not be able to make back the money they spent on a SuperBowl commercial, since it is now so expensive (and the 5 million price tag for a 30 second ad doesn’t even take into account the cost of actually producing the ad!)
• A number of advertisers have started to post part of their ads (or the full thing!) on social media (such as Youtube) before the game–probably to double up on the exposure by coupling the ad with social media
• Because of how expensive SuperBowl ads are, brands such as Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and GM decided to skip a few of the recent SuperBowls
• Interestingly, this year will be the first time since 1992 that SuperBowl and the Winter Olympics are broadcasted on the same network. In comparison, though, in 2010, a 30-second Winter Olympic advertisement sold for ~94.3 thousand dollars.

I feel like from those couple facts, it’s clear that the SuperBowl commercials are pretty special and even significant to American culture/economics. It’s really interesting to me that people would be interested in the ads (after all that’s all I want to skip when I’m watching a show on TV!) but also I feel like SuperBowl commercials aren’t really your typical commercials. In terms of the cinematography and content, SuperBowl ads are usually more polished, and some have emotional, heartstring tugging content, and some companies make political statements.

While I’m not planning on watching the game this year, I’ll probably be looking at some of the blogs posting reviews on the SuperBowl Commercials, or this NY Times article on the commercial live coverage.