The Super Bowl has long been a pinnacle of American sports, entertainment, and culture: a game featuring two teams squaring off in front of a televised audience of millions, a halftime concert featuring one (or several) of the top stars in music, and commercials that might just entice viewers to look up from scrolling on their phones during lulls in the action.
In many ways, though, the anticipation around this year’s game reached a new level—and not just because the game was the longest in Super Bowl history, with the Kansas City Chiefs topping the San Francisco 49ers in overtime.
For starters, there was the record-setting audience: the 123.4 million viewers that tuned into the game on CBS made the telecast the most watched in history.
Add in the fact that the game was in Las Vegas, a capital of American tourism, entertainment, and food—and the fact that the event was the first-ever Super Bowl held in a LEED Gold-certified stadium powered by a solar farm in the Nevada desert—this year’s event proved to be memorable for a variety of reasons.
And that’s before you consider the excitement around a certain Chiefs player’s world-famous significant other—Taylor Swift—herself amid a year that has, in many ways, defied comparisons.
Now, with Super Bowl XVIII in the rearview mirror, Kogod School of Business faculty are weighing in on some of the lasting takeaways from Sunday’s frenzy in Las Vegas.
Let’s talk commercials.
Just like every year, there was an array of memorable commercials, from New England icons Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Tom Brady joining forces in Dunkin’s “Dunkings” ad, to the world premiere of the trailer for the motion picture adaptation of the Broadway hit Wicked.
But the ads come as the media industry has faced declining advertising revenue, leading to cost-cutting (in fact, Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, which televised the game, has reportedly laid off hundreds of employees since Sunday’s game).
And yet, a commercial during the Big Game seemed as prominent and pricey as ever: as much as $7 million for a 30-second spot, noted the Wall Street Journal.
Do Super Bowl ads still matter as much as they once did?
We asked Benjamin Wright, Kogod professor in the Department of Management.
“The Super Bowl and its commercials continue to be highly popular and can still impact brand recognition, consumer sentiment, and sometimes sales," said Wright. "It remains one of the few events where millions of viewers actively tune in to watch both the game and commercials and often remember more about the commercials."