The Super Bowl is one of the largest and most-watched sporting events in the United States.
According to ESPN.com, the 2014 Super Bowl brought in approximately 111.5 million viewers.
With so many people watching, the Super Bowl has become an important outlet for companies to win over customers as well as for football teams trying to win the Lombardi Trophy.
During ordinary television shows, commercials are seen as an annoyance, but during the Super Bowl they are considered part of the event.
“I watch the Super Bowl just for the commercials,” said Senior Tommy Hanes. “They’re almost always better during the Super Bowl.”
“Super Bowl commercials are funny, but expensive to make,” said Senior Shannon Werner.
According to forbes.com, Super Bowl commercials can cost companies an average of four million dollars for 30 seconds and can vary based on the time slot bought. For the amount of money spent of these commercials, one should expect the commercial to be effective in getting people’s attention.
“The commercials need to be memorable to be effective,” said Werner, “but they can’t be memorable for the wrong reasons or else they won’t work. There is a fine line there.”
“I like trying to guess what the commercials are for before they end. Sometimes companies try to do too much and the actual subject matter is lost, said Hanes.
“It takes a lot of money to know the audience and tailor ads towards them,” said Sophomore Danny Francois.
Super Bowl commercials have ranged from classics like the ‘Mean Joe Greene’ Coca-Cola commercial from the 1979 Super Bowl and the ‘Apple Macintosh’ commercial from the 1984 Super Bowl to the ‘Streaking Sheep’ Budweiser commercial from the 2006 Super Bowl.
The brands tend to stay the same, but the ads this year were new. The usually risqué GoDaddy.com featured a spot involving a mob of bodybuilders racing for a spray tan while Coca-Cola featured a multi-language rendition of ‘America the Beautiful.’ There were mixed reviews as to the popularity of some of these commercials.
“I didn’t like the overuse of CGI,” said Hanes, “I feel like they could have put that money to better use. I was surprised, too, with the sexual innuendos in some of the commercials this year.”
“I always enjoy the Budweiser Clydesdales commercials,” said Werner, “they’re so cute.”
“Overall, the commercials were good, but they could have been better in places,” said Francois. “I wish Doritos had more commercials in the Super Bowl, they are always hilarious.”
Based on the forbes.com report of four 4 million dollars per 30 second commercial, it can be estimated that 200 million dollars were spent for commercials alone for the 2014 Super Bowl if there were 50 new commercials aired. This amount is likely to be much higher as some commercials were longer than 30 seconds, many featured celebrities, and many had special effects.
