Planning for Super Bowl LVI: How Marketers Can Scale Their Brand Preferences on YouTube
Fans and brands alike are getting ready for one of the biggest sports and television moments of the year. This year’s Super Bowl, between the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams slated for Sunday February 13th at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, CA, is anticipated to be one of the highest-viewed broadcast events of the year, last year attracting more than 96 million viewers. But that massive viewership doesn’t start and stop on game day, or even just on broadcast television. Content around the excitement and lead-up to the game, advertisement debuts, the halftime show, party planning at home for fans and families, and post-game highlights are all major trends across digital platforms like YouTube that present an opportunity for brands to drive mass awareness.
To help advertisers navigate Super Bowl content and make the most of this year’s moment, Zefr, the leading tech platform for walled garden investment, analyzed all Super Bowl related content on the YouTube platform to isolate the key trends and opportunities that matter most for brands.
Viewership Spikes Before the Ball
While the live broadcast event itself brought in 96.4 million viewers last year, the scale of viewership on YouTube alone during the days leading up to game day were even greater, clocking in at more than 150 million views for all super bowl related content.
Fans turn to YouTube to get in the spirit by catching up on game previews and predictions, player profiles and journeys to the game, and planning their at-home events with Super Bowl party hosting ideas, recipes, and tips. One of the top-viewed video themes watched ahead of the game are new commercials released, often featuring A-list celebrities promoting iconic brands or new products in unique and memorable ways.
The Super Bowl is known for spotlighting the NFL’s top-tier athletes, but the surrounding events and content always incorporate and feature well-known entertainment celebrities and current pop culture, making the moment a huge draw for even non-sports fans and a prime opportunity for brands to connect with mass audiences.
The Big Game
Once the game is underway, all eyes are on the teams and who will take home the trophy. Game highlights, player highlights, and mic’d up coverage videos are most popular on the Official NFL YouTube channel, which between 2018–2021 captured a combined 3 billion in views. Brand’s interested in reaching football fans can surround one of the most important moments in sports culture on YouTube with significant scale.
Equally as important to the game is the halftime show. Last year’s halftime show video alone has more than 44 million views and counting on the official NFL channel. Brands can strategically align with halftime performers and their related genres of music by strategically surrounding their combined footprint on YouTube as interest spikes. Zefr analyzed content across this year’s headliners Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar including past and current music videos, lyric videos, artist interviews and more, finding over 56 billion brand suitable views across more than 4,000 channels.
Reliving the Moments, Post-Game
While the period prior to and during the game see the most views on YouTube, the window after the game still sees substantial viewership, with 2021 views during this time reaching upwards of 80 million. Fans share their favorite game clips, commercials, halftime performances & analyses among friends, family, and co-workers as they re-live the excitement of the game. Top viewed video types during this window include opinions and discussions from sports analysts and fans, fan vlogs that captured the game in person, and mini docs on past winners and the newest winning team. These video types are also reflective of larger, platform-wide themes for brands.
How Brands Can Take Action
Zefr provides brands with brand suitable targeting opportunities in sports throughout the entire Super Bowl life cycle including leading up to, during, and after the big game.
Brand’s can capture the action as it happens and activate against any of the trending themes identified via Zefr’s Contextual Alignment Approach for SBLVI 2022, as well as extend their reach to capture the media replay on Monday and beyond. Contextual packages including everything from Football & Sports, to Snacks, Food & Cooking, to Hip Hop / Pop Music, Celebrity Culture, and more.
If you’d like to find out more about how Zefr can help your brand tap into these trends for 2022, please contact sales@zefr.com and download our Super Bowl LVI 2022 POV.
