As I'm sure many people know, the Superbowl was last Sunday, February 2nd. I come from a big sports family, so I always watch the Superbowl with friends and family. This year was no different. I was talking to my dad before the game started, and he was talking to me about the advertisements and companies' thinking behind buying ads. He works for Pepsi, so he knows all about the ads they bought for Doritos and other stuff. He was telling me that companies pay up to $4 million just for a 30 second ad slot during the Superbowl. I thought that that was insane, I had no idea that it was that much money for only 30 seconds. So, I decided to do some digging.
The Superbowl has always been one of the most watched programs in television. In 2012, it raked in 111 million viewers. So, advertisers and companies clearly see this as one of the best opportunities to promote their products. According to this
article, FOX was asking for the $3-4 million range for 30 second slots. To me, this is crazy. Just the fact that people are willing to spend this much money for a time period of 30 seconds is insane. Does it really do that much to boost a companies sales by a lot? How affective are Superbowl ads?
Well, the article says that the cost is so high because the amount of people that watch live TV has been decreasing in the past years. Ever since Netflix came out, as well as people have gained the ability to watch almost all TV online, people do not watch live TV as often. Therefore, people don't see the ads that companies are airing on TV. I think this is completely true. It is interesting to hear about the evolution of technology, especially TV. TV became super popular over the years, but I kind of feel like it hit its prime. Now, at least for me, a lot of times I wait for a show to be online the next day and watch it online because I don't have time to watch it when it airs, or for whatever other reason. I find myself watching less and less TV when it first airs, and always watch stuff online. Also it has become so much easier for people to upload or find TV illegally on the internet to watch, that you don't even need to own a TV.
Do you agree that people do not watch TV as much anymore, and if so do you think that it will stay this way?
It is shocking how much companies pay for such a short slot of advertisements, but I do agree that the Super Bowl is the prime time slot because it's when everyone actually watches TV. It is so true that people watch Netflix and Hulu these days over TV, but big sporting events like this bring people back to live TV. However, I feel like this is NOT the only opportunity that people have to see actual advertisements, because I feel like they push advertisements on things such as Hulu and Netflix anyway. I know that on music stations such as Pandora and ITunes radio, you cannot listen to 2 songs without an audio advertisement. Overall, I feel like advertisement companies find every opportunity to bombard their consumers with ads, so maybe the Super Bowl is a huge place for this to occur, but it is definitely not the only chance these companies get to give us their message.
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