Marketing Briefing: With fewer live events and opportunities, the Super Bowl may be even more important for marketers this year

By Kristina Monllos

While the Super Bowl is always important — advertisers wouldn’t pay $6.5 million (that’s the going rate this year) for a spot if it weren’t — there are usually other live events like the Grammy’s or the Golden Globes where marketers can reach audiences, even if the size of those audience has been dwindling in recent years.

But with the Grammy’s recently postponed and the Golden Globes off the air this year (which one ad exec noted “had been a huge ad and integrations event completely wiped off the calendar”), the opportunity to reach live audiences this time of year have dwindled.

With that being the case, “moments like the Super Bowl [are] even bigger marketing tent poles than usual,” said Nancy Hill, founder of Media Sherpas and former 4A’s president, adding that she doesn’t believe the NFL will make changes to the Super Bowl schedule. “They’ve already proven their willingness to ensure that the ‘game must go on.’”

This year’s Big Game will air on NBC on February 13.

As for live events needing to shift due to the omicron variant, like the awards shows that typically offer another outlet for advertisers to reach live audiences, it’s another example of marketers needing flexibility to manage the around on-going pandemic, according to agency execs and industry observers.

“We have been doing multi-scenario planning for our clients going into 2022,” said Carrie Dino, head of media for Mekanism. “This means we are looking at 2-3 plan options that we can execute on depending on the current economic and public situation when our media is set to launch.”

Hill echoed that sentiment: “With everything still in flux, ‘planning’ is almost becoming an oxymoron. Scenario planning is the norm now. ‘If not A, then B. If not, B then C.’ Brands and agencies have to remain flexible, vigilant and willing to move fast.”

Aside from making the Super Bowl more important for marketers and needing to plan for multiple scenarios, agency execs say that the shifting nature of live events “adds up to much more last minute planning,” noted the first ad exec.

Of course, that’s not the case for all marketers and agency execs. Dino noted that “for any in-person events or cultural moments that are reliant on in-person gatherings, we are proactively negotiating alternative media executions in the event that a broadcast or event is moved to a later date or moved to an online alternative.”

“It is certainly more work upfront, but in the end it has really helped to avoid the scramble of last minute media cancellations,” Dino added.

3 Questions With Firestone Walker Brewing Company CMO Dustin Hinz

What’s Firestone Walker’s current marketing strategy and how has it changed over the last year?

One of the things that we’ve really focused on over the last couple of years is a very strong awareness. We have to use media that’s really agile and incredibly measurable. Because, like everybody in today’s age, I’ve got to show the efficacy …read more

Source:: Digiday