The Behind-the-Scenes Jockeying for $10M Super Bowl Ads

0:00This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype. Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great impressions, reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that bull spend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO? LinkedIn ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. You can target by company, industry, job title, and more. So cut the bull spend.

0:37Advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a$250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com slash the town. That's linkedin.com slash the town. Terms and conditions apply.

0:59It is Thursday, February 5th. At its core, the entertainment business is about creating demand for attention and then monetizing the crap out of that demand via fees or advertising. There's no greater VIP room for advertisers than the Super Bowl, which offers only about 80 slots for commercials during these three-hour or so game every year. We've already seen the ads start rolling out online, everything from reuniting the Jurassic Park stars, I'm betting Spielberg got a nice check to okay that one, to Emma Stone shilling for domain registrations. Another big check, I'm sure, though there's some evidence that star fees for Super Bowl ads are coming down a bit.

1:36That's partially because the cost of running these ads has gone up so much, in part because the audience keeps growing. Last year's Super Bowl on Fox averaged 128 million viewers, a new record driven by the new Nielsen out-of-home counters and the game being available for free on Tubi, which Fox owns. This year, the big game is on NBCN Peacock, which is about to go on a pretty epic sports run with the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics, NBA All-Star Game, all in the same month. Very monetizable. Followed by the Spanish-language broadcast of the World Cup this summer. To that end, Adweek recently reported that NBC got, quote, $10 million or more, end quote, for a handful of 30-second spots in the game, which would be a record for the Super Bowl and thus any television broadcast.

2:21Mark Marshall, the head of NBC's ads unit, he confirmed that number, but I'll admit I was still a little skeptical, especially since NBC is selling all these packages for multiple games. So I asked Bill Bradley of Adweek, he's the author of that piece, to come on the show and discuss the number, plus the behind-the-scenes jockeying for ad slots, the celebrity piece of it all. Today is the Super Bowl ad market, how it's changed and how the broadcasters are monetizing TV's biggest event. From The Ringer and Puck, I'm Matt Bellany, and this is The Town. This episode of The Town is presented by the Walt Disney Animation Studios' Zootopia 2.

2:55Now nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, The Hollywood Reporter hails Zootopia 2 knocks it out of the park with this dazzling visuals, sophisticated humor, and genuine emotion. For your consideration for Best Animated Feature.

3:14all right we are here with bill bradley who is the deputy tv media and sports editor of ad week and the author of an interesting story that we are going to discuss on the show today welcome bill hey thanks for having me really excited to be here you are no relation to the former basketball player and politician correct you know matt it's the first time you clever guy It's the first time I ever heard that one. I'm sure. I can't wait for more of that. Yeah. Yes. All right. So you wrote a piece for Adweek that caught my eye because it had the$10 million number in it. And your story said that NBCUniversal was able to get$10 million for a Super Bowl ad.

3:57I happened to be at a dinner last night with a bunch of media buyers. This is not really my world. I don't I don't wade into the ad world that much. But I was with these media buyers and I said, so what do you think of this 10 million number? And a couple of them said there is no way they got 10 million dollars unless there were other things attached to it. Unless it came along with, you know, spots in the Olympics or a package deal or NBA All-Star game. And NBC does have this trifecta of sports events during February this year. So basically, I'm asking you, is this spin? My bullshit detector went up a little, is what I'm saying.

4:43Is this really a$10 million ad buy in the Super Bowl? Or is this kind of smoke and mirrors from Mark Marshall, the chairman of the ads group at NBCUniversal? You know what's so funny is that that dinner must have been great. But all the media buyers I talk to, they're like, yeah, someone paid 10 million, but not my clients. Not for my clients. So, yeah. But do you know who it is that paid? I wish I no one's going to admit it is the problem. And I think they should be proud about it, by the way. Hey, we're the first. But also, what does it mean if you spend 10 million? It means you just got in really late.

5:22It means you probably didn't get it because some of these other companies are getting 7 million for their Super Bowl buy. Right. But they committed early. They committed early. Yeah. Yeah. So you believe the 10 million number. You think it was for that spot and not a package deal? Yeah. Well, look, there has to be stuff with it. Right. Because but here's the thing. It could be even higher than 10 million because what happens with the Super Bowl is whenever you have an ad buy, for instance, whenever they went to 8 million really quickly in like mid May, they were also asking for an 8 million match across their inventory.

5:59So really, you're almost paying$60 million for the rights to that 30 seconds. So yes, I agree. Which happens all the time. For most of the platforms, if you want the premium space, you have to commit to other stuff that's less premium or you don't necessarily want. Totally. So NBC coming into this year, they had a lot of inventory to sell, which is maybe why they started out a little low in the upcoming... You mean not just Super Bowl, but with the Olympics and NBA. And they've also got the Spanish language FIFA World Cup coming later this summer. Yeah. So they have a lot to offer. Totally. Specifically, NBA and Olympics, it's all happening within two weeks of each other in February.

6:43So they really had a lot of inventory to sell. So they were already coming in with the idea of, OK, we're going to give people a deal, start out at seven million, and you have to be in these other packages, too. So everybody wanted to do that. And then NBC was like, oh, wait, maybe we should rethink this. And then because because the demand was so high. Right. So what happens is when that demand is so high, what NBC, what a Super Bowl broadcaster is going to do is make a list. So they're going to have, OK, these are the other companies that want to get in here. We have a list of advertisers. And then if something opens up, say Anheuser-Busch bought six spots and they're like, oh, maybe we only need four.

7:24That's how some of this other inventory opens up. And that's how you get, you know, they said a handful of ads, probably three to four ads that are going to be 10 million plus because it's the demand and people want that 30 second spot. I get that. And I feel like they probably are counting on that. Does that always happen? yeah you know the last two years it's been really accelerated so um if you go back to like the pandemic um there were spots available maybe you know i've talked to buyers like a couple weeks before the super bowl you could still possibly get in the game and it just wasn't like that this year um things sold out faster that's sort of why mbc started out a million but you're saying that in order to get to the 10 million number, somebody has to drop out because somebody has to be available.

8:15Yes, absolutely. So what they do is they'll sell out that inventory. They'll have all the spots accounted for. And there's, you know, 80 spots in the Super Bowl. So they'll have that all accounted for. And then things always happen where there's always advertisers who drop out for whatever reason. Spots get moved around a little bit. And then there's those openings. And then since NBC, you have this list of advertisers, you go to them and see, okay, how much are you sort of willing to pay to get in this game? And that's how you get that 10 million number. Interesting. The ordering of the ads is always fascinating to me.

8:52How does that work these days? Is it simply that you are paying more for certain positioning? You know, supposedly the end of the first or second quarter is when the biggest audience is or after halftime, after the halftime performance. But is it just a payment thing or is it if you are a preferred advertiser that spends$100 million a year with the platform, you're going to get that preferred spot over somebody that just shows up for the Super Bowl? yeah you're i mean you're totally right um by the way those 10 million dollar ads it's probably for a first-year advertiser if you're someone who's coming in because they're just they're just like exploiting them because they're late to the party and they don't care they don't have a long relationship with them yeah i mean basically if you're an anheuser-busch like you have multi-year deals with mbc so uh not only are you getting preferential treatment but maybe you're not being asked to do the match across the network because you're already paying that more than that in your other ads that you're running there sure so um but one thing to also think about too is at the beginning of the year a super bowl broadcaster will send out a letter to like their advertisers who were in the game last time and be like hey this was the spot you had do you want to reserve it so they sort of get the first dibs on what they had uh the previous time the broadcaster ran the Super Bowl.

10:23So if I'm Joe Blow tech company that wants to make a splash with my new Super Bowl ad, I'm going to get the highest price and the worst placement. I feel bad for Joe Blow because that's probably what's happening. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but something like ChatGPT, I think they have ads booked this year. And that's a big deal because, you know, obviously they're one of the more valuable tech companies right now. And so you're saying they are going to get shitty treatment? Well, OpenAI was in it last year, too. Oh, they were? Okay. Yeah, they were in for Fox last year. So that depends on it, too. Are you a previous Super Bowl advertiser?

11:05A lot goes into it. But also think about, too, with that 10 million number, it's definitely not that for everyone. So I understand that the media buyers at your dinner are like, well, you know, not my clients, because probably they have been working with NBC and were in the game. Yeah, these were a lot of entertainment studio buyers. So they have long relationships. You know what, Matt? Then I want to hear more from you because I'll tell you what. Well, this was an off-the-record dinner. I can't tell you details about this. What'd you have for dinner? Can you say that? I had a very nice combination of Branzino and filet mignon.

11:39Thank you very much. It sounds lovely. um but when it comes to the studios though they do this fun little dance every year and it's like uh they just think their spots are the most coveted they they never you know try to let them you know don't let me see it under embargo i'm just trying to cover the ad just let me know what you're well i think you're gonna tweet some reveal from the odyssey i just don't want to get yelled at matt i just want to do my job that's all i'm trying to do you get yelled at what are you talking about why would you get yelled at you're just you're an intense environment on super bowl night i don't know if you've ever been in a war room we call it a war room for uh super bowl coverage but we are writing multiple stories about uh every ad and it's just like there's yelling there's chaos oh interesting so yeah i mean i the equivalent for me used to be the oscars so like the super bowl is the oscars of the ad business i get that but why would anyone yell at you because you're mischaracterizing their ad or you're giving away a spoiler what what's the deal with that dude no like why would anyone yell in the first place at all aren't we professionals in a place of business welcome to hollywood there's a lot of screamers that would just be wonderful um but no it's more everyone's crazy come on everyone's crazy it's more of hey who has this covered are you getting this ad and it's it's just to make sure we have everything going but I would love it if it was just a little more chill.

13:10Okay. Bill, Bill, I have a question. What about the, what about the Jesus ads? Do the churches have closer relationships with certain networks? Great question, Craig. Do they have to pay the same amounts as other brands? Do you know how any of that works? Well, it depends. I have to look up actually who's behind the Jesus app. It's not a church though, right? It's a different organization, but they've been in the Superbowl also for a long time. So if you're in the Super Bowl a long time, you're going to have some preferential treatment and you're going to also just get a little more leeway than like someone coming in for the first time.

13:46These first time advertisers are the ones who are always paying more and maybe not getting the preferential slot. But there are certain networks that are that are kinder to the Jesus ads compared to other broadcasters. It's not like, oh, Fox would prefer to have a few more of those compared to CBS. Not necessarily. No, honestly, behind the scenes. They're taking the money. Yeah. Behind the scenes with ads, it's like, okay, are you going to pay this? Great. Like, that's what we're doing. It's the same thing with Scientology. Scientology runs an ad a lot and they're regional ads. They are not national ads, which is different in different pricing.

14:26And they, you know, everyone goes nuts in LA and New York because they see the Scientology ad, but many people do not see those creepy ads. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's how you get something with like, and this was an anomaly last year, but like the Kanye West ad that went to the website and then he changed it. But it was like a regional ad. It's not something that's going national. Not everyone's seeing that. And interestingly, Peacock is selling streaming only ads for the Super Bowl. Why? What's the benefit there? Is that just to bring in a new class of advertiser that maybe can't afford those big national spends, but does want to be part of the Super Bowl experience?

15:07Yeah, 100%. I mean, you're nailing it. So those streaming-only ads will probably replace regional ads and then run on Peacock. I think they had like 10 that they were selling this year, something like that, but it's much cheaper. So you can get something like a streaming-only ad for I think the average was like 2 to 5 million. And that includes a match across NBC. So, so yeah, you're paying probably 2 million for the ad, then 2 million for a match. And then you can say you have a Superbowl ad and promote it online and everyone will pay attention because they think it's special. Absolutely. It comes because as a viewer, like you don't really understand what's, what's, you know, going to be a national ad versus a regional ad.

15:51So someone just puts it on YouTube. Hey, we have a Superbowl ad that's going to get attention, you know? And I think Peacock, I think they're estimating around 20, 22 million, something like that for viewership. So it's significantly less. However, you're right. You get the cachet of we're in the Super Bowl. Peacock is estimating 20 million viewers for the Super Bowl? I think it's something around that. So Tubi last year had like mid teens and Peacock generally, I believe gets about 15 % of like the NBC audience. So if you're having a hundred. Oh, interesting. But Tubi is free. Peacock is not free.

16:31But if you have 120 million people like, and that would be low because last year it was like 128 million. If you have 120 million, 15 % of that probably around 20 million is what you're expecting. This episode is brought to you by TaxAct. Like an expert coach, TaxAct offers step-by-step guidance and guaranteed accuracy when filing taxes. Get tips along the way, add expert assist to talk to tax experts and let our experts do your taxes for you with expert full service. TaxAct helps you find the deductions and credits you deserve so you can get them over with. Visit TaxAct.com to learn more, conditions apply.

17:09See TaxAct.com for details. This episode is brought to you by The Home Depot. Spring is starting, so it's time to wake up your yard. And at the Home Depot, they've got everything you need to do it with low prices guaranteed. Mowing your lawn is a dream with top brand outdoor power tools like the Ryobi 40-volt mower with up to 50 minutes of runtime. You can add a pop of color with spring blooms and fresh plants and refresh your garden beds with earth grow mulch, five bags for just$10. Start your spring with low prices now through April 1st. Available at the Home Depot. Exclusions apply. See homedepot.com slash price match for details.

17:53All right, so let's go to the studio advertisers, the Hollywood advertisers. What are you expecting to see this year? I mean, one thing that I'm not expecting to see is a Marvel ad. I think that's the big surprise this year is that Disney's not, because it has a couple MCU movies and it's not. No, only one. There's Spider-Man, but that's released by Sony. And then there's Avengers in December. So that's far away, but they have been doing this kind of branding rebrand for the Avengers campaign. And you're saying they're not participating? They are not going to have an MCU ad. So that's going to be out.

18:31However, Disney will have a couple others. So they're going to have Hoppers probably, which is for Pixar. and then Mandalorian and Grogu is going to be there, possibly Toy Story 5. But yeah, and then... Disney got, I feel, a big boost from that stunt they did last year with Lilo and Stitch, where Stitch ran across the field. I know Disney was very proud of that. They were very proud of it. Yeah, you know, that was interesting. It's cool whenever people do something different. I don't know if you remember the Tubi ad a couple years ago when they sort of crashed the Super Bowl and it looked like that stuff is the stuff that gets attention.

19:11So if anyone can think of more creative ways to handle advertising, especially when so much is going comedy. I've heard Universal has something up their sleeve, that they are planning something noisy. So Universal, I know they have a few. Obviously, with Comcast and corporate synergy, you have the opportunity with Universal to do some cool stuff. so yeah they're gonna have disclosure day and then that's the spielberg mario movie is gonna be in there and then that minions three um they declined to comment of course so i can't but hey if you know a secret matt could you share maybe they'll you know what maybe they'll just super impose minions on all the footballs when they're kicking field goals so instead they're kicking I would watch it.

20:01I would watch it. I love the Nickelodeon broadcast. You know, when everybody's flying. Sure. Yeah. The overall money brought in. It's really hard to quantify that, right? Because of all the packaging and everyone wants to say it's a record. Do you foresee a record this year on ads? I mean, that number that was delivered last year via Nielsen, that 128 million number, far bigger than any other Super Bowl. We know why they're now measuring all the out of home people just like the NFL wanted. So regardless of whether they get a big number this year, I think we're probably going to see numbers, you know, stories come out on Monday about the record haul for this.

20:43Yeah, I'm already prepping it. I'm so I'm. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I don't want anyone to yell at you. Thank you. I appreciate that, by the way. Yeah. Fox. I thrive on it. I enjoyed last year had, I think it was 800 million around there for the record this year, though, something to keep in mind with Fox, they had the first 8 million for 30 seconds Super Bowl ads last year, they sold maybe 10 of those, whereas that's probably more closer to the average what NBC got this year. So I would imagine they are, especially with getting people to also will buy into the Olympics. Yeah. Uh, I would be shocked if they don't come out with, we have record revenue.

21:29The funniest thing is this auction that has happened in the past. People don't realize that if the Superbowl goes into overtime, which has only happened once now, is it once? Twice. Okay. But there's a literal auction that takes place in the fourth quarter where they will say, holy cow, we're going to have overtime. Who wants to bid for spots? And it's like 4 million bucks, 5 million bucks extra that you can get per spot in that. And how does that auction work? Is it literally them like texting each other saying, do I hear five? Do I hear five? You know what? I feel like those days are now behind us, but, um, well, no, they are because NBC said they are planning for so they already went out to advertise but it's just crazy that it happened in the first place like with everything being automated these days it's like really they're going to have a a audio auction dude it was it was wild first of all like i hope you talked with the buyers about this at dinner but basically and i want to do at some point like an oral history of this because it's it's nuts but basically they had buyers next to their clients in the super bowl calling in, being like, hey, we want this spot.

22:44We want this spot. And to do that, you have to have approvals ready. You have to have the ad ready to go. Sometimes the Wi-Fi is not working. I talked to one buyer who said he was a little bit imbibed at the time. So like trying to buy a$4 million ad when you've had a couple. So he's like drunk buying ads on the Super Bowl, Like it's, you know, midnight on Amazon with new speakers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hopefully you send it to the right address, right? So it's like, it's totally, it sounds like it was completely nuts. So yes, NBC is sort of taking that into account, especially considering Mark Marshall has to like zip off to Milan like seconds after the Super Bowl.

23:29So yeah, I spoke to him and he said he wanted to just make sure it was less stress so they have everything sort of lined up if it does go into overtime. You know, more and more big stars are doing Super Bowl ads. I just saw one that posted today with Emma Stone. Your ghost, I think it's doing that. The intervention for Emma Stone needs to happen. Like the your ghost relationship, like enough already. I know she keeps getting nominated, but like we got to extricate her from that relationship. What are you talking about? She's now doing a Super Bowl ad with him? Come on. I feel, you know what, poor things.

24:02Everyone else is a poor thing because those two are just, you know, getting nominations, getting the Squarespace money. Like, let's go. Like, do your thing. Okay, but my question is the ad budgets for some of these Super Bowl ads. Like, what does the Yorgos ad cost with Emma Stone? A lot. What does the Jurassic Park ad with the original cast for Comcast cost? Are these$10 million ads? Are these$30 million ads? You know, it really depends. But something that's interesting is with the ads, like this year, I was talking with someone who said like the pay for celebrities has gone down as the media has gone up.

24:47So celebrities, maybe in the past, you can make like three to five million dollars if you're an A-lister. Now it's more like one to three million. And then also if you have multiple celebrities and they're getting paid the same. So those costs go way up. Like Uber Eats has an ad with a bunch of celebrities in it. That could be a$50 million ad, like easy. But probably at the very least, you're looking at whatever your media buy is, it's probably double that to make the ad. So like a$20 million investment for some of these 10 million, probably baseline, like what you're looking at. So like when Matt Damon and David Beckham are in an ad together for the Super Bowl directed by Ben Affleck.

25:29Right. Like they're all making the same. Like what is that? How does that bring? So Ben Affleck also, in terms of the Duncan ad, like helps creatively concept those. So he's going to get a little more. But yeah, everyone else in the ad is probably going to get paid the same amount. And it's going to be significant. I was thinking about I was thinking about the Stella ad, but that. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're getting paid the same for sure. The thing is with the rising costs of these media spots, also the rising costs of having celebrities, you see things like Lady Gaga being in the teaser for, I believe it's Rocket, but not being in the actual ad.

26:11And then there's another one. Why? Why do that? Does she charge less for that? You're saving costs. Yeah. It's way cheaper to pay for Lady Gaga for 15 seconds than a minute long ad. Why? She's still getting out of bed for the ad. Like, why not just do that? I mean, why is she charging less for that? Well, I don't know. You got to speak to Lady Gaga's publicity there. But I would say for the brand perspective, yeah, that's what they're probably trying to do is save a little bit of money. So let's tease it, get a lot of buzz, and then pull the old switcheroo. So is the first quarter the most coveted spot?

26:50I've heard that the two-minute warning like right before halftime is really important. is it a linear decline in terms of how expensive these spots are from the beginning of the game to the end of the game? Or are there certain spots that are more lucrative? Well, the spots that you want is it's going to be that first ad pod. So the first after kickoff, after kickoff, that's like the most coveted and then viewership peaks at halftime. So any, anywhere around halftime is also going to be pretty coveted fourth quarter. I think advertisers, that's the thing you got to realize going into it, I think it's like 40 % of Super Bowls are blowouts.

27:27So at that point, yeah, your viewership is going to be a little bit lower if it is like, you know, what last year was like the Eagles blowing up. Huge blowout. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, you want to be in it when it's competitive, but it's definitely that first time. Yeah, you got to, if you're a risk taker though, the reward on having an ad in the final two minutes when it's a squeaker is probably pretty high. Totally. And it's a cheaper spot, probably. Right. Potentially. Yeah, potentially. It depends on obviously the deal. If it's a first time advertiser and you're in there, though, like that's a that's how you get your 10 million dollars worth, I guess.

28:05Yeah. All right. Where are you on Super Bowl Sunday? I'm hiding under my desk and I'm hoping people don't yell at me, Matt. That's all I'm trying not to get yelled at. I'm trying not to get yelled at. I'm going to be in New York. um yeah we do our our war room where everybody comes into the office and just covers it the whole night we're also doing the live stream so um yeah look out for me on the live stream i'm gonna have plenty of makeup on i said double the makeup please oh wow yeah that's what i say cake it on like cake it on paint paint me like a clown all right yeah appreciate it bill thanks for coming on thanks matt thanks for having me we are back with the call sheet craig i know this is your department, not mine.