
Dear brand leaders,
At $8 million for a 30-second spot, brands have a lot riding on each ad that runs during the Super Bowl. While these commercials have proven to increase product demand, the overall effectiveness of Super Bowl TV advertising has declined 32 percent since 2020. While it's easy to blame the undertow of marketing performance that has mired most brands in recent years, a deeper examination tells a different story.
Super Bowl advertising is failing to connect with consumers at an alarming rate.
When 90 percent of purchase decisions are emotional and impulse-driven, the value of short-term product demand is diluted, at best. In fact, with over 80 percent of Super Bowl viewers using multiple screens (primarily phones) while watching the game on TV, it's likely that while one brand creates demand on the big screen, a competitor is reaching the same audience more effectively on another device. Emotionally connected customers spend three times more than those who are merely satisfied and remain far more loyal. Brands must understand and connect with the needs of their customers. Otherwise, the demand they spend so much to generate with their Big Game investment may ultimately drive sales for the competition.
This also means that brands must pay as much attention to their second-screen content and social engagement strategies during the Super Bowl telecast as to their 30-second commercials. While your brand may deliver an impactful moment of resonance in a Super Bowl commercial, the best opportunity to create a lasting emotional connection is through a simultaneous digital experience that can easily engage that consumer for 10 minutes or more.
The Ad: Deliver a Resonant Moment During the Game
Even the most powerful Super Bowl commercial is gone in 30 seconds. It takes much more time to establish an emotional connection with consumers, making it nearly impossible for a brand to make the investment in a Super Bowl ad pay out on its own. By understanding the people who purchase your product and what they value, however, your message can resonate in a way that opens the door to lasting customer bonds.
In 2024, the competing food delivery services Uber Eats and DoorDash both ran ads during the Super Bowl. Both brands followed the classic Super Bowl campaign playbook, with Uber Eats featuring celebrities and DoorDash dangling prizes. USA Today ranked Uber Eats’ commercial sixth among all Super Bowl ads for its humorous spot with Jennifer Aniston. Meanwhile, it placed the DoorDash ad among the least-liked Super Bowl commercials of 2024. However, DoorDash elicited a tremendous emotional response with its unique approach to gamification — which Sooth data says is the top motivator for young adult consumers to try a new brand.
Even if viewers weren't entertained by the DoorDash commercial, it created emotional brand engagement on a historic scale. By turning its 30-second ad into a game, DoorDash earned perhaps the most significant business bump of any Super Bowl advertiser, improving its year-over-year performance by 23 percent and growing its already dominant market share to nearly 60 percent by the end of 2024. In contrast, even with a Super Bowl ad that viewers found highly entertaining, Uber Eats experienced an overall decline in sales for the year.
Does your Super Bowl ad reflect an understanding of your customers’ and prospects’ emotional priorities sufficient to deliver a moment of genuine emotional resonance?
The Experience: Extend the Moment on a Second Screen to Create an Emotional Connection
Using what was undoubtedly the longest promo code ever, DoorDash drove viewers to enter the code immediately on its campaign site — and millions did so on a second screen even during one of the most exciting Super Bowl finishes in history. DoorDash proved the enticement of winning a massive prize package was just as emotionally motivating to many as the game itself. The consumer data exchange that began on the campaign website turned a moment of resonance into the foundation for a lasting emotional connection. Every order was a predictor of future needs and behaviors. One by one, each order revealed critical information about the needs and preferences of each member and household. DoorDash can use this information to anticipate what each customer wants before they even think of it. Over time, its customers will learn to expect exactly that, giving DoorDash the opportunity to make its members feel respected and understood in a way no competitor can penetrate.
Is your brand ready with the type of second-screen experience and consumer value exchange required to turn a moment of resonance into a lifetime of emotional connection, loyalty and advocacy?
With a single media placement costing more than many brands’ annual marketing budgets, advertising in the Super Bowl is the ultimate high-risk, high-reward gamble. While brands from Apple to Old Spice have reversed steep sales declines with memorable ads, far more Super Bowl commercials leave people confused, unamused, and wondering what the brand could have been thinking. Without an understanding and reflection of your customers’ emotional needs delivered across multiple screens, the likelihood of this massive investment delivering a positive return is, at best, a roll of the dice.
Ian Baer is the founder and chief soothsayer of the strategic insights platform and marketing consultancy Sooth.
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Ian Baer is the founder and chief soothsayer of the strategic insights platform and marketing consultancy Sooth, has been solving marketing’s greatest challenges for over three decades. He has spent his career helping major brands achieve extraordinary success and challenger brands box above their weight class in leadership roles with Publicis Groupe, TBWA, Rapp, Deutsch, and others.