The millions of
Canadians tuning in the Super Bowl on Sunday night are more eager to take in
the lavish television ads than the football game itself, a new survey suggests.
A recent
Harris/Decima poll found that while a third of Canadians plan to tune into the
National Football League's marquee event, 46 per cent intend to watch the ads
that air throughout the game.
That doesn't
mean, though, that would-be ad-watchers will be turning on their televisions to
do so. Of those who hope to check out the big-budget commercials that have
become a hallmark of the event, the survey found 45 per cent intend to view
them online rather than during the matchup between the Denver Broncos and
Seattle Seahawks.
The commercials
have even captured the attention of those who have no interest in football,
Harris/Decima said.
Of those who have
no plans to watch the Super Bowl, one third still hope to check out the ads at
some point.
The telephone
poll, which surveyed 1,010 Canadians across the country between Jan. 23 and 27,
carries a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points 19 times out of 20.
The survey
results came as little surprise to marketing experts, who said the phenomenon
of Super Bowl advertising has long threatened to outstrip the actual football
game in terms of both spectacle and pop culture significance
Companies hoping
to air a 30-second ad to a captive audience had to shell out US $42,000 in
1967, according to an analysis by the Associated Press. While those numbers may
well have seemed steep at the time, they pale in comparison to the US$4 million
price tag today's 30 second ads can command.
Those costs don't
even account for the creative budgets some companies are prepared to devote to
a Super Bowl campaign.
Dino Demopoulos,
Vice-President at DDB subsidiary advertising firm Tribal Worldwide, said deep-pocketed
American corporations have been known to spend upwards of US$14 million on an
ad that would traditionally have aired just a handful of times at best.
Those companies
argued that the viewership numbers alone made their investment worthwhile,
Demopoulos said. Indeed, the 2014 Super Bowl is expected to attract 108 million
viewers in the United States alone.
But Demopoulos
said modern day technology has greatly widened the scope of the audience,
making the Super Bowl advertising game an even more high-stakes affair than the
one unfolding on the field.
Super Bowl ads
are no longer one-offs. High-profile advertisers like Anheuser-Busch, Bank of
America, H&M and Nestle have already previewed their commercials on social
media. All ads will also be available for repeat viewing on video sharing sites
after the game has ended.
Demopoulos said
these new channels have made pricey ad campaigns more compelling for brands
eager to raise their public profile.
"With
conversation starting before the Super Bowl spots air, and certainly during the
evening of the Super Bowl and beyond, the kinds of things that marketers are
measuring that they weren't measuring in the past is the predominant
sentiment," Demopoulos said in a telephone interview.
"Are people
saying negative things about the brand? Are people saying positive things? . .
. There's a whole arena . . . online where a brand can really learn a
lot."
The Super Bowl
advertising scene is more muted in Canada, where experts say both audience
interest and corporate spending are considerably lower than they are south of
the border.
Alan Middleton,
Assistant Professor of Marketing at York University, said Canadian companies
don't aspire to the same advertising budgets as their American counterparts.
U.S. companies
with a presence on both sides of the border sometimes release ads tailored for
Canadian consumers, though to considerably less fanfare.
Nonetheless,
Middleton said he's not surprised by Harris/Decima's take on Canadian interest
in Super Bowl ads.
Canadians are usually
keen to embrace Americana, he said, adding images from corporate heavyweights
such as Volkswagen and Coke have gone on to become pop culture touchstones.
Besides,
Middleton said, the experience can simply be fun.
"You've got
a much smaller proportion of the audience who feel a loyalty to either of the
teams," he said. "Strangely enough, they're much more likely to go,
'(this is just as entertaining as watching the game.'
Demopoulos and
Middleton both agreed that it's difficult to gauge the overall success of Super
Bowl advertising campaigns, especially in light of the more complex media
landscape.
Demopoulos said
companies have shifted the focus away from boosting sales of a specific product
to raising awareness of the business as a whole.
"A lot of
the work that's featured in the Super Bowl is just intended to elevate
perceptions of the brand," he said. "It's more story-telling as
opposed to hard sales."
Middleton said
the rise of online interest has taken some of the risk out of an expensive
Super Bowl campaign.
The growing
number of websites and social networks that carry the pricey productions, he
said, go a long way to ensuring that companies on both sides of the border get
a real bang for their advertising bucks.
"For the big
players to drop four million for a for a 30-second commercial, provided you can
expand it across all the other media, it probably pays back in most
cases."
Kickoff for Super
Bowl XLVIII is scheduled to take place at 6:30 eastern time on Sunday evening.
Canadian Press
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