I Counted 27 Super Bowl Ads Yesterday That Had Celebrities

It’s the day after the biggest advertising day of the year, the Super Bowl. Here are a few advertising stats on the 2019 event:

Host network CBS charged a record $5.25 million for a 30-second ad during this year’s game.
A total of 54 advertisers shelled out $5.25 million for 30 seconds of screen time during the Super Bowl this year, adding up to 93 ads in total.

Today is largely “national hangover day” since it’s the Monday after the Super Bowl. It’s hard for most of us to remember much of anything about Sunday’s game, especially that brand of cleaning solution whose ad aired in the third quarter.

Alcohol brands and automobiles have arguably the largest budgets when it comes to allocating it towards media buys, creative, production, and paying a celebrity for their time and involvement endorsing said product. But even a great commercial must be something Joe sitting on the couch at home can remember.

The competition for attention is incredibly steep; every advertiser in the program lineup has paid top dollar to put their best foot forward with their 15-30 seconds designed to capture their viewer’s attention. Traditionally, TV commercials have largely been about brand awareness (as opposed to ROI). Which is why the Super Bowl is the most advantageous day for well-known brands to continue to solidify the position they occupy in the consumer’s mind.

Are Super Bowl ads worth it?

Everyone has their opinion on which commercials were great and which weren’t. But I thought instead it would be more interesting to evaluate how many ads enlisted the help of a familiar face in the form of a celebrity.

My hypothesis is that commercials are more memorable when it involves someone you recognize. Therefore, I predict this year, more advertisers will use celebrities. It begs the question: are Super Bowl Ads worth it? In my opinion, it’s worth it if the ad causes the audience to remember your brand or it reinforces your existing branding.

I kept track of every commercial break noting the brand name and if any famous people were involved in the commercial as a main actor or cameo. For this experiment, I considered a celebrity to be anyone who was in a TV show, a famous athlete, an actor in a movie, or a musical artist. I didn’t count any promos for a CBS TV show because it goes without saying, any network would have aired their TV lineup if it had been their turn to host the broadcast on their network. I wanted to get the purest count of paying advertisers during the broadcast who used celebrities.

Let’s see how many ads leveraged the power of a familiar face by incorporating celebrities into their ad. I’ll bet it’s more than you think.

Notes & General disclaimers:

*Please excuse any typos in my spreadsheet below; this was mostly for fun and I was also slightly more concerned about not dropping spinach artichoke dip on my MacBook Pro. 😀

*To clarify: animals can be celebrities too. There were a handful of ads that leveraged well known animals; the GOT dragon in BudLight, the Dalmatian and Clydesdale horses in the Anheuser- Busch commercial, and Mercedes mentioned Lassie.

*Every space denotes when the commercial break started/ended. Brand names that advertised within that quarter are listed in the first column.

*Celeb = 1 means there was one or more celebrities present in the ad. 0 means no celeb was used.

Brand name Q1	Celebrity/ General observations	Celeb
Bon viv sparkling water	no celeb	0
m n m	celeb bud I couldn’t place her quickly enough	1
hulu	handmaden tail – celebs	1
bumble ad	serina williams – don’t wait to make first move	1

Hyundai	car – jason bateman	1
Turkish airlines	The Journey – ridley scott film	0
Survivor	TV bump	0

OLAY	sarah michele gellar- spoof horor movie scene; face unlock	1
Doritoz	backstreet /insync	1
weather tech pet comfort	goldent retreiver dog	0
Pepsi half time show	TV bump	0

Marvel	captain marvel. Lindsey lohan	1
Bud Light	new version of thei rperiod ads. Returning Corn syrup – whole idea is it’s not brewed w/ corn syrup	0

fast and furious producers: Hobs & Shaw	movie trailer – the rock, handsome rob	1
Expensify	rap video; need receipts for the is video – guy from parks and rec	1
CBS show: FBI		0

Pepsi	Steve Carell , Cardi B , lil john	1
Simpli Safe	robots doing our jobs	0
T mobile	giant long text message	0
Audi	grandpa & son, – choaking on cashew nut. Surprise but not memorable	0

Brand name Q2	Celebrity/ General observations
Bud Light	GOT season finalie (HBO)	1
avocados from mexico	dog show	0
CBS show bump	Worlds Best	0

Pringles		0
Google translate	most translated words: hello, thank you, I love you	0
Showtime		0

Mercedes	lassi get help; if only everything In life listened to you	1
pro clean	deep clean. Waste of money	0
Tmobile	she drives me crazy song w/ taco bell	0

Toyota	toni harris female athlete – Rav 4 hybrid	1
Planters peanuts	Charlie Sheen, A rod.	1
CBS	TV bump	0

mint mobile	wireless	0
Norwegean cruse line		0
CBS bump – Star Treck tv spin off	on spock	0
CBS twilight zone bump		0

Turbo tax	robo child; all CPA’s are live people. You’ll never be emotionally complex for the job	0
Stella Artoi	Terry Bradshaw, the Dude, XX Man cameo – ” the dude abides”	1
Sprint	Bo Jackson (good for guys but I didn’t know who he was)	1
CBS bump		0

CBS bump	bionic arm violinist	0
CBS bump	young sheldon	0
CBS bump	God friended me	0
Showtime bump		0
Yellowtale wine		0
Xfinity	(too safe) the future of awesome	0
Draper University		0
Oakers.com		0

(right before half time)
NFL 100 year	football fumble off cake, branding play at a dinner party and football is loose	1
Pepsi half time hsow	IBM watson drone “love” “one”	0
	Big Boi – outkast ; I love the way you move

Toyota subra	it’s back. Sports car	0
ADT	home security; home flipping twins / celebs	1
Grammys	TV bump – Alisha Keys	0
Toyota	college grad buyatoyota.com	0
CBS sports bump		0
DCU checking		0
Celebrity cruise line		0
(replay) Mass Mutual		0
Comcast Internet		0
DCU	who is this?Local ad?	0
	(halftime commentary)
KIA		0
Bubly	Michael Buble – sparkling water	1
NCIS bumper	TV bump	0

Brand name Q3	Celebrity/ General observations
Tmobile	free lyft ride	0
Wix	karkie ross (redone)	1
Netflix	One Planet – animals. looks awesome	0
Michelob beer	it’s only worth it if you can enjoy it – robot	0

Verizon	it’s our job to make sure they get the call; nfll coach	1
Devour	frozen foods	0
Grammys	Alisha keys hosts	0

Google	“jobs for veterans J225”	0
Colgate		0
CBS bump	SWAT	0

Amazon prime	original content Hanna	1
Sketchers		0
Bud Light	driving home not made w corn syrup	0
CBS bump for their show		0
CBS bump	The Neighborhood	0
CBS grammys bump		0
Chevvy	a little but country a bit rock and roll	0
Hennesy		0
Dietz Nuts	celeb – craig robinson. Funny	1

Brand name Q4	Celebrity/ General observations
Microsoft	playing video games. They teased it online prior to superbowl	0
WeatherTech cup phone		0
BudLight	not made with corn syrup	0
Verizon	first responders; shorter version	0

BurgerKing	#eatlikeandy	0
Budwieser	dalmation; brewed with wind power	1
CBS	big bang theory – last season Thursday	0

amazon	forest whitker, harrison ford, great one –	1
Scary stories		0

Michelob	beer organic form – hawaii ASMR zoe kravitz	1
Late show promo		0

T mobile	texting conversation	0
The Washington Post	knowing empowers us	0
The Grammys
	Patriots win!
Amazon	bit more of the same commercial – what does it mean: not every one makes the cut?	1
	Total	27

Observations: half of the Super Bowl ads featured a known person or animal

Out of 54 advertisers, I counted 27 ads that ran during the game that used a celebrity or well-known animal personality. That’s about half. Which means half of the ads on the biggest advertising day of the year leveraged some type of recognizable person with which to associate their brand.

I think this is a growing trend because when it comes to advertising — yes, it’s expensive — which is why brands need to tap into the immediate effects of facial recognition and positive association with people who are funny/ cool/ cute/ and inspirational.

So, are Super Bowl ads effective?

Celebrity endorsements are nothing new. But the prominence of how many advertisers built their creative spots around this tactic so that their ad would have the greatest impact during the time when their audience has the shortest attention span confirms the effectiveness of this strategy.

When it comes to Super Bowl Sunday the audience is always going to be incredibly distracted whether they’re watching at home and using their mobile phone or at a loud bar or house party. Brands have two options to make their game day ads count: make us remember you OR remind us who you are.

The most familiar face in football: Tom Brady. Congrats on your 6th win, Patriots!

The Secret to Great Content Marketing: Q&A with Scott Stratten

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

That’s never been more true for content marketers than it is today. Thankfully, there are unconventional marketers living and speaking (read: ranting) among us to guide the way and keep us honest about what really matters in business and to people. Scott Stratten is one of them. Scott is the author of “UnMarketing: Everything Has Changed and Nothing is Different.” He is also a dynamic speaker.

I first heard of Scott and his work when I was interviewing a number of speakers from Content Marketing World earlier this year. I was curious to get his perspective on how he consistently creates quality content. While I wasn’t able to meet Scott in person, he very kindly responded to my interview questions via email.

His answers delighted and informed me. I hope you enjoy his wit and wisdom too:

(HM) What information does your audience most want to read about? And how do you deliver on that?

(SS) We’re pretty unique in that we focus mainly on bad business instead of good. The UnPodcast is “The Business Show For The Fed-Up”. We’ve become the magnet for when a brand does wrong, our army of followers send it to us. You never want to be the name in the message “Did you guys see this?”

We deliver it through our weekly UnPodcast, blog (rarely), 5 books and 60 keynote talks at conferences per year.

(HM) How do you know what to write about?

(SS) If we find it interesting, then so does our audience. We’ve always put out content we enjoyed, and then the audience qualifies itself.

(HM) How do you say current with industry trends in content marketing?

(SS) Always be consuming. To be a good content marketer, you have to be an insatiable content consumer. I never stop reading/watching/listening. That’s my only job. Strong newsletter subscriptions, Google news alerts and even smarter friends/colleagues/fans that curate great content, both directly to us and in their own feeds.

(HM) What combination of platforms are you using to curate and create content?

(SS) Weekly UnPodcast, blog, 5 books and 60 keynote talks at conferences per year. Post weekly on UnMarketing Facebook page (on average, no set frequency), tweet when we feel like it and wonder weekly why we use LinkedIn.

(HM) What are some of the problems that aren’t being addressed by larger companies in the area of content marketing?

(SS) Content is contextual based on the platform it’s published on. We uploaded a video of one of my rants. It got 250k views, which is great but should have been better. Knowing the context of Facebook video (versus YouTube) that you have to catch a potential viewer in a scroll on their news feeds, we re-uploaded the same clip, with a letterboxed view, complete with an attention grabbing headline that stayed on the video. It received over 14,000,000 views. No changes except the words on it.

(HM) What’s a common question you get asked a lot from your clients relating to content?

(SS) No idea, we have no clients 🙂

(HM) In your opinion, what is the most important element of storytelling?

(SS) There’s a reason most great stories are from humans instead of brands: companies can’t get themselves away from the mirror and realize it’s about the person consuming the story, not the one telling it.

(HM) What is your biggest content related challenge?

(SS) The debate between frequency and quality. We send a newsletter out every 6 months, but we should do it a lot more.

(HM) What does your research process look like when you’re writing about a topic you don’t know anything about?

(SS) Google 🙂

(HM) How do you see content evolving over the next 3-5 years?

(SS) Not much. Most people are predicting we’ll consume everything in VR/AR have a vested interested in it.

Bio

Scott Stratten is the President of UnMarketing. He is an expert in Viral, Social, and Authentic Marketing which he calls UnMarketing. Formerly a music industry marketer, national sales training manager and a Professor at the Sheridan College School of Business, he ran his “UnAgency” for a nearly a decade before solely focusing on speaking at events for companies like PepsiCo, Adobe, Red Cross, Hard Rock Cafe, Cirque du Soleil, Saks Fifth Avenue, Deloitte and Fidelity Investments when they need help guiding their way through the viral/social media and relationship marketing landscape. He now has over 175,000 people follow his daily rantings on Twitter and was named one of the top 5 social media influencers in the world on Forbes.com.

He has written four best-selling business books, the newest being “UnSelling: The New Customer Experience” which was just named “Sales Book of the Year” by 1-800 CEOREAD.

His passion comes out most when speaking on stage, preaching engagement and becoming one of the most sought-out speakers on the subject. Along with Alison Kramer, their UnPodcast has been signed by the CBS network as their premier business podcast to launch their new digital network.

His clients’ viral marketing videos have been viewed over 60 million times and he’s recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, USA Today, Entrepreneur Magazine, CNN.com, Inc.com and Fast Company and was named one of “America’s 10 Marketing Gurus” by Business Review USA. That plus $5 gets him a coffee anywhere in the world.

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Follow UnMarketing on Facebook or on Twitter at @unmarketing.

News Flash: 15 Year-olds Are Not Tweeting

For anyone reading this from a branding perspective and wondering, “where should I be?” or “what social networking site is best for my brand?” Think about your target market first. Think about why they would be on a particular social networking site (consider the values, activities and benefits offered) and then find a creative, constructive and intuitive way for consumers to interact with your brand. But don’t think you have to “tweet” just because everyone else is doing it. Because news flash: your target market may not even be participating in that space.

While having dinner a few nights ago with family friends, I took the golden opportunity to chat up their 15 year old son on his preference for social networking sites. Sure, he has a MySpace and Facebook page.

“Do you tweet?” I asked him. He stopped a moment, “do I what?” Now I was puzzled and tried to explain the recent phenomenon (known as Twitter). “Do you, you know, ‘tweet’? It’s a micro blog on this site called Twitter…” I could see he had no clue as to what I was talking about. His preference was, in fact, Facebook.

Moving up into the next target market, personal friends of mine roughly ages 24-29 who have otherwise abandoned their MySpace sites in favor of communicating on Facebook. Is it for the cleaner interface? Or the ability to network amongst a foundation of college-based individuals? Whatever the reason, it seems the grass is looking greener on the other side.

As for me, I maintain a presence amongst these popular social sites, but have recently tailored my postings. For example, I wiped out all profile information on my MySpace page in favor of creating a profile full of photos highlighting the places I’ve traveled and exciting things I’ve done. I communicate with many of my real friends through Facebook where my profile page reflects a slightly more intimate “me” yet still simplified with pictures, info and posts on my wall. As for LinkedIn, I’m all about it. I recently added my blog to my page and included a handful of great books I’ve read.

For anyone reading this from a branding perspective and wondering, “where should I be?” or “what social networking site is best for my brand?” Think about your target market first. Think about why they would be on a particular social networking site (consider the values, activities and benefits offered) and then find a creative, constructive and intuitive way for consumers to interact with your brand. But don’t think you have to “tweet” just because everyone else is doing it. Because news flash: your target market may not even be participating on that social platform!