To the Americans, the Super Bowl is more than just a long-awaited game between two well-cheered-for teams, it is also a festival for high-profile advertisements. In fact, one can go as far as to say that the Super Bowl is as much about the in-between commercials as the game itself.
Since the first NFL final in 1958, the number of viewers had been on an increase. The program is so popular that the number of fans has already reached a “critical mass” where the audience population becomes self-sustaining – there are enough football fans to be able to influence the next generation to become football fans as well.
- Past 43 Season Super Bowl Logos
With such a large and consistent audience base, businesses are willing to pay a fortune just for a short exposure during the Super Bowl game, and because businesses are paying a fortune, you can be sure they make every penny worth-while. As Preet mentioned in her blog,
“The traditional view of Super Bowl commercials is that they are “epic”. Companies want to make commercials that meet the high expectations of consumers, with a wide variety of themes (usually comical), and hope that they will be remembered. Super Bowl commercials are so highly regarded that many people often search them up on sites like You Tube to watch them again.”A mind-blowing number of research and analysis has been put into these commercials. For example, this year’s Chrysler commercial featuring Clint Eastwood spans merely 2 minutes but includes shots in more than 5 cities. According to Wieden & Kennedy Portland, producer for Chrysler’s advertisement,
“The filming of the piece throughout the country was intentional…This message was about the country as a whole and it was important to showcase that breadth.”Chrysler clearly does not want to miss any demographic segment in the US and wanted everyone in the nation to be able to relate to their advertisement.
As good as Chrysler’s commercial may be, it stands against tough competitions because every business is focused on the same goal – to appeal to as many individuals as possible. As observers, however, we can extract a lot of marketing techniques from these commercials and it will be interesting to read-up about the different production stories for each commercial.