Is a $10 Million Super Bowl Ad Still a Good Deal?

0:00Even social at its best,$10 million spent on Meta and TikTok perfectly. you can't get 100 million people to watch a 30-second video. So the attention of a Super Bowl ad is disproportionately the best advertising media deal in the world, let alone America. The problem is if your creative isn't good. This is the Gary Vee Audio Experience.

0:28Will Shad here, bringing fiber to the masses with Kellogg's Raisin Bran. Duty calls. Will Shad? Every darn day. Whoa. Well, Kellogg's Raisin brand is just one brand shelling out serious cash for a spot in this year's Super Bowl ad lineup. The top price for a 2026 ad hit$10 million for just 30 seconds of airtime. That is according to NBC, the network broadcasting the big game. And joining us live is one of the brains behind that Raisin Brand ad, which I'm still recovering from. His name is Gary Vaynerchuk. He is the chairman of VaynerX, CEO of VaynerMedia and co-founder of VaynerSports. Gary, it's great to see you again.

1:14Always good to see you, too. So this is something that we were talking about last week with the CEO of Roe, which has a Super Bowl ad with Serena Williams. It's really interesting that even with all the talk about the demise of linear television, the Super Bowl obviously stands alone. So talk to us about the value of a Super Bowl ad and what that ROI still looks like. You know, attention is what everyone's seeking. You know, you can't really tell someone about how great your product is if you don't have their attention. I, on Madison Avenue for 15 years, have been yelling that linear television commercials are overpriced versus the attention you actually get.

1:53But I've also always said while I was the Pied Piper for social that even social at its best,$10 million spent on Meta and TikTok perfectly. You can't get 100 million people to watch a 30-second video, not to mention look what's happening here. You get the collateral impact of running a Super Bowl. So the attention of a Super Bowl ad is disproportionately the best advertising media deal in the world, let alone America. The problem is if your creative isn't good. Hey, everybody. Hope you're enjoying the podcast right now. Make sure you follow the podcast. That's why I'm interrupting. Let's keep going on this show, but follow the podcast.

2:30It'll make my mom super happy. Well, that's what I was going to ask you, because it's one thing to have attention. And I bring this up, too. I was telling Katie this. I was kind of snowed in this weekend. I read this great book on branding. It's an older book by Naomi Klein. But it's the idea, too, of what are you trying to get across. You're not selling, to a certain extent, Raisin Bran. You're selling some sort of message, some sort of ethos out of it. So how do you do that? by making it very clear that fiber needs to be a part of everyone's diet. You know, like, yeah, I mean, and whether you're going macro, academically from a book, or you're in the trenches day-to-day like I am and you're trying to get some sales in the short term at Walmart or Amazon.com and build a brand.

3:06Right. It still has to hit. The attention is there. I'm on right now. If I say a bunch of nonsense, no one watching right now in this interview is going to be like, oh, that's a guy worth looking into, or that's interesting. So the creative is still the variable of success. it's just that attention is so fragmented yeah we're all watching streaming and this and that and so it's not 1989 anymore and super bowl does sit on a pedestal i would argue 10 million for the attention is cheap but again you can waste 30 million between production talent fees and all the other stuff that mbc makes you buy when you do super bowl yeah there's that part so if there's a lot of people yeah this sunday who are gonna crush with super bowl yeah and there's gonna be even more people that are going to waste a ton of money with yeah yeah we see this every year and there's certain brands obviously you have the big gigantic brands uh obviously like with a raisin brand or something like that but then you always have these kind of upstarts you know companies that you've never advertised that's right or relatively new who ends up getting the most value out of that the company that that has never really been heard from before no it's a great question both the company's never been heard for before big shout out to rome big fan of his yeah they're going to get awareness they never had before.

4:14Yeah. Right? So a lot of people are about to discover them. And then for brands that we know, like Raisin Brand, it's a relevance thing. A lot of people just said, huh, Raisin Brand. It's a re-cognition. So it's either relevance or it's broad awareness. New companies, the tech companies in the 2000s, the crypto companies, a new brand that's made some money, Poppy, big shout out to them. They get more awareness. More people now know that are just not seeing them in social feeds. But then there's brands that everyone knows, like a Raisin brand, that are going to work on relevance. Yeah. Like maybe you just haven't thought about Raisin brand in a while.

4:48That way. But now you're thinking about fiber. Gary, I want to go back to a point you made that$10 million for that attention, you could say that that's cheap. But you could waste a lot of money on actual production and putting it together. And that brings me to a question on AI. Because you scroll through social media, it's hard to avoid. You're going to come across an AI image or an AI video. are you expecting that we're going to have that experience watching Super Bowl ads as well? At some point. Right now, the advertising industry is not being affected by AI as much as it could be because everyone watching right now, the general public, is anti-AI because subconsciously they're worried about losing their job.

5:26So we're going to have this 36-month window where the gen pop is going to push against brands. And brands have dabbled. McDonald's dabbled. They got smacked. So brands are going to pull back for 24 to 36 months. but the stigma is going to go away eventually and so eventually, of course, it's an inevitable outcome. Technology always wins. But what does an AI ad look like and particularly in the context of the Super Bowl? Exactly. But there's a reason why you have all these celebrities in there, right? It's going to look exactly like that. I pay attention because you had Will Shatt in there or I pay attention to nerds because they have Andy Cohen or whoever else.

5:58But I can pay Will Shatt for his NIL and William at 94 won't have to come on the set. So you're saying like 100 years from now we'll be seeing Will Shatt in commercials? We may if Will Shatner's family decides to arbitrage his NIL, or if he doesn't put that in his will. I fully expect my great-grandkids to make bank on my NIL in the future. I'll be doing this interview with you two in 120 years. Or our avatars or whatever. All right, Gary, always a pleasure. Such a pleasure. Thank you. Great to have you here. Gary Vee, chairman over at VaynerX and CEO of VaynerMedia. All right, we do want to stick in the world of sports, specifically MMA.

6:35We caught up with UFC CEO Dana White, and he talked about how he's looking to shake things up once again. Obviously, you're known primarily for MMA, but you've got the, you mentioned the - Hey, everybody, if you enjoyed this podcast, please go back and look at the prior episodes. They're loaded. I appreciate your attention, and thanks for being part of this journey. See you later.