Super Bowl ads are selling out and beer companies are spending big
The hottest ticket in town for advertisers has officially sold out. Fox said Monday that all in-game ads for Super Bowl LVII have been sold.
The top game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles takes place on Sunday.
The Super Bowl is advertising’s biggest stage, with advertisers struggling to get their products in front of the more than 100 million viewers each year. Fox Sports executive vice president of ad sales Mark Evans said some ads cost more than $7 million for a 30-second spot. Most sold between $6 and $7 million.
Anheuser-Busch remains the largest advertiser with three minutes of national airtime. The drinks giant gave up its contract as the exclusive promoter of alcohol this year, so Heineken, Diageo, Remy Martin and Molson Coors are also in the mix. Other big advertising categories include packaged foods like Doritos and M&Ms, film studios and streaming services, automakers and tech companies, Evans said. Out this year: crypto companies.
Last year’s Super Bowl was dubbed the “Crypto Bowl” because four cryptocurrency companies — FTX, Coinbase, Crypto.com, and eToro — ran splashy commercials. It was part of a larger effort by crypto companies to break into the mainstream with sports sponsorships. But in November, FTX filed for bankruptcy and its founder was charged with a scheme to defraud investors.
That year, two crypto advertisers had commercials “booked and done” and two others were “on the one-yard line,” Evans said. But when the FTX news broke, those deals weren’t finalized.
“There is absolutely no representation in that category that day,” he said.
Evans said most Super Bowl ads sold much earlier than usual, with more than 90% of Super Bowl ad inventory gone by the end of the summer as established advertisers jockeyed for prime positions. But the remaining spots sold more slowly. In part, this is due to the implosion of the crypto space, as well as general advertiser concerns about the global economy, Evans said.
Last year, NBC briskly sold out of its ad space, saying an undisclosed number of 30-second spots cost $7 million, a jump from the $6.5 million the ads spent on in 2021 became.
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