For one Sunday of every year, people gather in living rooms and bars nationwide to give their undivided attention to commercial breaks, which is why so many advertisers jumped at the chance to pay $7 million for 30 seconds of Super Bowl LVIII airtime.
The ads we see while watching the big game can tell us a lot about the current consumer spending landscape—including which industries and businesses are hot or want to be. So, we put together some charts showing the number of brands in each industry that have bought Super Bowl commercials recently (our methodology is below).
This year’s breakdown
Tonight, you can expect to see a lot of food/drink and e-commerce-related ads:
Noteworthy: Ladies, personal care giants are coming for our wallets. Riding a wave of increased female viewership that’s been boosted by Taylor Swift’s relationship with Kansas City’s star tight end, NYX Cosmetics and CeraVe (both owned by L’Oreal) are placing their first Super Bowl ads, Dove is returning for the first time in 18 years, and E.l.f. Cosmetics is back for the second year in a row. And even many nonbeauty brands have opted for women guest stars, like Kris Jenner for Oreo.
First-time advertisers include…MGM’s online sportsbook BetMGM, Drumstick ice cream, Nerds, Lindt chocolate, Starry, Silk almond milk, the sports drink Bodyarmor, Popeyes, and Etsy.
Turning back the clock
Here’s a breakdown of some of the most common industries that go big on Super Bowl advertisem*nts and how their presence has changed over the last five years:
Noteworthy: The companies that have graced our screens for every Super Bowl Sunday since at least 2020 are Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, Doritos, Pringles, Squarespace, TurboTax, T-Mobile, and Universal Pictures. From 2021 on, Hellmann’s, E-Trade, and Skechers have also been consistent advertisers. This year, for the first time since 2014, the car mat manufacturer WeatherTech will not have an ad spot.
Here’s a 5-year overview of just the fintech ad space since 2020:
Noteworthy: That dip should feel painfully familiar to anyone with a digital currency wallet. Crypto.com, Coinbase, eToro, and FTX all placed Super Bowl ads for the first time in 2022 (you probably remember FTX’s less-funny-in-retrospect campaign with Larry David). Despite the hype, that year turned out to be the worst period in recent history for digital currency, with bitcoin’s crash and FTX’s collapse rattling the industry.—ML
Methodology: Data was gathered from lists of Super Bowl commercials compiled by Ad Age, Marketing Dive, SuperBowl-Ads.com, and iSpot.tv and sometimes from web articles announcing ad spots. Advertisers announced yesterday and today were not counted. Other outlets’ lists were combined and category names were edited. Advertisers of religious or political campaigns were not counted. Local/regional advertisers also were not counted unless the commercials aired in several major markets (except for a United ad playing only in Kansas City this year). Advertisers were counted by the number of brands represented (but not more than one per commercial), not by the number of ad spots that individual brands purchased.
