Five Media Trends to Look Out for in 2023 Super Bowl Ads
More beer ads and movie trailers will fill the void that crypto left behind
Another Super Bowl is upon us! As the most-watched televised event in the U.S. that pulls in around 100 million live viewers each year, the Super Bowl stands as arguably the last vestige of a mass media culture led by linear TV and live viewing.
Considering that 30% of Americans say that the ads are the best part of the Super Bowl telecast, it is no surprise that brands are still shilling out the big bucks to make a splash. As usual, the ad spots have been sold out at a historic high, with peak prices surpassing $7 million for a 30-second spot.
As one of our favorite weathervanes of cultural zeitgeist, the Super Bowl ads often show patterns that are indicative of where consumer interests and sentiments are landing these days. Here are some of the key trends in media and technology that we are expecting to see reflected in this year’s Super Bowl commercials.
No More Crypto Ads
First thing first, one of the easiest trends to predict when considering this year’s Super Bowl ads would be an understandable departure from last year’s crypto-mania. Last year, crypto companies went hard on the big game and tried to pitch themselves as “the next big thing” in financial investments. A slew of commercials featuring celebrities like Larry David or LeBron James hawking for crypto exchanges such as FTX or crypto.com led to many to dub last year’s telecast the “Crypto Bowl.” That most certainly would not be the case this year.
Now that Bitcoin lost roughly half its value, and multiple crypto exchanges were forced to file for bankruptcy, FTX among them, it should come as little surprise that the Super Bowl will feature zero national ads for crypto companies this year. Reportedly, two crypto companies had commercials “booked and done” and two others were close to buying a spot earlier last year, but the deals fell apart following the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in November and the ripple effect on the entire crypto market.
As I noted in my recap of last year’s Super Bowl, the FOMO-heavy messaging employed by the crypto companies was a missed opportunity. While it may have worked in converting more less sophisticated investors in the immediate term, it failed to offer a new narrative that may counter the growing backlash against crypto even back then. Thankfully, there’s never a shortage of brands with advertising dollars for the Super Bowl, and by all accounts, Fox has easily filled the void that the crypto companies left.
Lots More Beer Ads
Another easy-to-spot trend this year is the surge in beer and other alcohol brands, thanks to the opening created by Anheuser-Busch InBev ending its category exclusivity in alcohol, which the brand has held for 33 years. At the time when this was announced in June, AB InBev released a statement explaining the decision as a “reassessment” of the company’s investment priorities that would help support an association with football year-round.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that the world’s largest brewer is pulling out of the Super Bowl completely; in fact, AB InBev will still have a decent showing this year with four ads across three brands. Moreover, in tandem with letting go of its category exclusivity, AB InBev has taken steps to strengthen its relationship with NFL, including launching a recycling program and developing a stronger presence during the off-season.
Nevertheless, this new approach means that for the first time in 33 years, Super Bowl audiences will see national ads for beer brands that are not owned by AB InBev. Molson Coors, for example, quickly followed up AB InBev’s announcement with buying in-game ad spots for its brands Miller Lite and Coors Light. So far, at least three more alcohol brands, including Crown Royal, Rémy Martin and Heineken, are all in. (Interestingly, Heineken is pitching a non-alcoholic beer with a co-branded spot with Marvel’s upcoming Ant-Man movie.) Perhaps this Super Bowl will end up being the “Booze Bowl” instead.
Movie Trailers Are Back
Due to the pandemic disruption on theatrical releases, the Super Bowls of the past two years had featured less movie trailers than pre-pandemic years. This year, however, movie studios are expected to return to the Super Bowl in droves with promotional spots for their upcoming blockbusters. Viewers can expect to see trailers for “The Flash” from DC and the latest “Fast & Furious” film, “Fast X,” during the game. Additionally, Marvel’s upcoming “Ant-Man and the Wasp: c” will be part of the aforementioned co-branded spot with Heineken.
The theatrical business is still at a rather precarious crossroad, despite the great recovery in box office numbers led by popular titles such as “Top Gun Maverick” and “Avatar 2.” Regal cinema’s recent troubles are but one indicator in the declining health of the movie industry. Overall, encouraged by the box office performance, the studios are returning to theaters. For most of 2022, the problem wasn’t customers seeing films, but studios providing the inventory that are compelling enough to draw the audiences to theaters. Fortunately, industry analysts seem to believe that we have a packed March coming up at the cinema, which makes Super Bowl the ideal media event for some last-minute push.
Therefore, it is perhaps reasonable for entertainment brands to use Super Bowl to not only promote their upcoming theatrical releases, but also their content portfolio as well. In this streaming-led era, entertainment brands, especially the digital-native ones with weak ties to the theatrical business, are far more likely to opt for advertising their streaming services or showcase multiple movies and TV shows in a single ad, rather than burning the marketing budget on one single film or series. Movie trailers may be back at the Super Bowl this year, but they may also be on their way out.
More Direct-Response Ads
For most of its history, Super Bowl ads have been the holy grail for the type of mass-market, awareness-driven brand campaigns that piggybacks off the massive scale of the event. Yet, in recent years, direct-response formats have started to creep into the big game, often prompting viewers to take out their phones to scan a QR code, tweet out a hashtag, or enter a sweepstake. Last year, Coinbase’s Super Bowl spot, which featured a bouncing QR code that directs people to download its app, was so effective that it crashed the app. Will someone else be brazen enough to replicate this approach? Perhaps not a copy-paste, but we do expect to see more QR-codes prominently featured in some of the Super Bowl ads this year.
Connected TV (CTV) ads have seen some interesting experiments in recent months. The Roku-Doordash partnership on interactive click-to-order ads comes to mind as one such example in the direction that TV advertising is evolving towards. Of course, the Super Bowl telecast is still a linear TV event, therefore it’d be difficult to incorporate native direct-response ads into the broadcast. But with more live sports content moving to streaming services, one could see a future where more direct-response CTV ads will be integrated into sports content, as the number of CTV users continues to grow and advertisers have access to more data and targeting options.
Nostalgia on Steroids
For the past few years, it has become quite clear that brands are leaning into the growing cultural nostalgia in their Super Bowl spots, hoping to trigger some deep emotional resonance in audiences, primarily via cultural references from the 90s and the aughts. This year, it is looking no that much different, with various examples from the Rakuten spot with Alicia Silverstone reviving her role as Cher in the 1995 hit comedy “Clueless,” to Frito-Lay’s bringing back the “Breaking Bad” duo for its first Super Bowl ad.
Moreover, beer brand Michelob Ultra’s big game spot features a huge cast of celebrity athletes reenacting scenes from the 1980 movie “Caddyshack.” Meanwhile, Workday’s ad stunt casted five rockstars, including Ozzy Osbourne, Joan Jett, Billy Idol and Paul Stanley of Kiss, which is sure to get a strong reaction out of audiences of a certain age while having their kids go “who?”
Bonus: Is Anyone Going to Try Generative AI Ads?
Lastly, as a bonus, we are also going to keep an eye out for any Super Bowl spot that either references generative AI tools like ChatGPT or Midjourney, or, better yet, actually make use of them as part of their creative process. Avocados From Mexico reportedly intended to experiment with generative AI, but decided to pull those plans due to unspecified reasons.
Of all known Super Bowl advertisers, Microsoft, given its recent launch of AI-enhanced Bing search, is a likely suspect to do so in order to market its newfound generative AI capabilities gained through its investment in Open AI, but other tech companies may find this hot topic too buzzy to not reference or capitalize on. Either way, this is only the beginning of the generative ad era. Give it a few years, generative AI may just be fully automating TV ad creation & production across all key aspects.
