Hey did you hear? The Super Bowl is on Sunday, and just as reliable as death, taxes, and Bill Belichick being a grump on the podium even if he wins, you’ll see articles on Monday about the best and worst Super Bowl commercials. Some will win, some will lose, but they’ll all be paying over $5 million for 30 seconds of airtime.
Will the “Dilly Dilly’s” from Bud Light be among the best? Or maybe David Schwimmer in a Skittles ad? Or Bill Hader in a Pringles Ad?
Whatever happens, you’re sure to hear about it all the next day, even if you go to the bathroom, take a bean dip break, or have to get the kids to bed during the commercials.
And if you run a business, you’ve probably been thinking to yourself, “One of these days, I’m going for it! I’m going to pony up the $5 Million to advertise on Super Bowl Sunday and see what happens!” Right?
Well maybe not, but for the sake of this article, let’s say you’re thinking about it.
Believe it or not, spending the $5M on Google AdWords is probably going to be a better option for you. You’ll see why it’s probably instead of absolutely below.
Ok, so here’s why Google AdWords works better than Super Bowl Ads.
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- ) You can't afford it. Sorry, I’m just going to go out on a limb and guess you don’t have $5M at your disposal. Actually, you probably need at least $6M total - $5M for the cost of the ad and $1M+ for the cost of the ad production.
- ) You can't measure it. This is the big one. With any traditional advertising campaign, you really have no idea what type of impact it had on the results. When someone buys at the store or online, do you have any idea if they heard your commercial? You can make some educated guesses of course, but it’s mostly just guessing. With Google AdWords, and any online advertising campaign, all results are measurable and trackable, so you know exactly how to make adjustments based on results.
But let’s assume that the above two assumptions are wrong – you do have $6M in cash that you’re able to spend on a Super Bowl commercial, and you could actually measure the results. How would running a Super Bowl ad compare to running ads on Google AdWords?
First, let’s check out spending $6M on Google AdWords. That’s spending a LOT of money – that’s $100,000 per month – for 5 years! We have clients spending around $100K per month, and just for the sake of using round numbers, let’s say they get around $300K in revenue per month from that spend. Doing the math, on that $6M investment, you would get $18M in revenue.
So then, can a Super Bowl ad increase your bottom line by $18M? Actually, it’s possible.
According to marketing research and advertising technology company Fluent (http://fortune.com/2016/02/06/super-bowl-ads/), the average “brand lift” of a company after a first Super Bowl ad is 12.7%. Which means that 12.7% more people recognize the brand compared to the 30 seconds before the commercial aired. And let’s say that brand lift lasts about a month. That’s probably generous, but let’s use that for the sake of argument. Also for the sake of argument, let’s say that the 12.7% brand lift meant an increase in sales of 12.7% in a month. Which could be a stretch, but let’s go with it.
For that 12.7% increase in sales for the month, how much increase in revenue would that have to be to equal $18M (which is where AdWords is in this example)? Doing some math (.127X = $18M), that means if you’re already at $141,732,283 per month in revenue, that 12.7% brand lift and sales lift would EQUAL $18M, which is the exact revenue increase as from Google AdWords.
So there you have it. If you do more than $141,732,283 per month in revenue already, you should spend your $6M on a Super Bowl ad. But if you do less than that, Google AdWords will be better for you.
Dilly Dilly!