The cost to buy advertising time during the Super Bowl is expensive… too expensive for many companies to even consider or it simply does not make sense in terms of ROI. But, if a company has sufficient marketing dollars to spend on a Super Bowl ad spot, the investment may not be money well spent.
Granted, the cost of commercial time is high- $2.7 million for 30 seconds this year. Add to that figure the cost to create a commercial and an advertiser has easily topped $3 million for its investment in the big game. The total cost incurred means that an advertiser is paying $100,000 per second to reach the Super Bowl audience. The size of that audience makes the Super Bowl an attractive marketing vehicle; this year’s audience is expected to be as high as 94 million people. So, if an advertiser spends $3,000,000 for air time and production, its CPM (cost per thousand people reached) would be about $32. The cost efficiency as measured by CPM makes Super Bowl advertising appealing, even if the outlay is quite high.
The question a potential Super Bowl advertiser must ask given these considerations is “How many of the 94 million viewers are part of my target market?” If it is believed the audience has substantial overlap with a brand’s target market, then Super Bowl advertising may be the best $100K per second a marketer ever spends!
