Super Bowl LIII premiered on Sunday, Feb. 3, and it is safe to say the event was not very well recieved. The game was heavily criticized for terrible plays, boring commercials, surprises that paid off to nothing, and to top it off, a halftime show where a shirtless Adam Levine was the least controversial topic of conversation. The thing that stands out the most here, though, is not everything that happened with the actual game, but rather with a larger issue concerning the Super Bowl ads.
The Super Bowl advertisements have become almost as anticipated as the game itself. Every year, people gather around the TV to enjoy crazy scenarios generated by each commercial or whatever famous celebrity companies can nab. But this year, they were largely lackluster. This speaks to a larger issue the NFL faces. This year’s Super Bowl saw the lowest Nielsen rating yet, which is a rating system that uses audience size and composition of TV programs. However, if it is smart, the NFL might be able to take this opportunity and use it to their advantage.
Without actual knowledge of what percentage of their ratings are actual viewers of the game as opposed to people who tune in to just watch the commercials, it is a safe assumption at least half the people who tune in are not interested in the game. Not counting the amount of faces per TV screen, the NFL is missing a golden opportunity to make the advertisements part of its marketing strategy for the Super Bowl. Usually, the ads are mostly spread via word of mouth.
Just to give an example, at last year’s Super Bowl, Netflix dropped an advertisement for “The Cloverfield Paradox” during the game, revealing the movie would go up on Netflix upon the game’s completion and ultimately making for one of their most-viewed films that saved both them and Paramount Studios millions in advertising revenue. It was something completely new that had never been seen before, and it was easily the most talked about event from the game last year.
If the NFL really wants the Super Bowl to not fall victim to social-media-obsessed millennials, Generation Z-ers and future generations inevitably growing bored with the game like every other previously thought social media proof event, then it needs to seriously consider its audiences. It needs to pay special attention to why people are watching and plan their marketing of its advertisements around that, and it needs to start now. Imagine if, a few months before the Super Bowl, right around when the teams are announced that make the game, they start dropping teasers for advertisements, similar to what movies do now with trailers. Instead of dropping full-length trailers, movie studios have been dropping little snippets of footage, usually ranging from 30 seconds to a minute, before the trailer is even released in order to build up anticipation.
If there is one thing that is becoming more apparent with each generation, it is that they have short attention spans and even shorter memories. The NFL needs to take a few hints from studios and understand its audiences more if it wants to stick around. Otherwise, it will fade into obscurity.
Photo from Keith Allison via Pixabay
