Month: February 2023

127.2 million impressions on Netflix

Netflix’s ad-supported tier may be off to a slow start with the streamer falling short of guarantees it promised advertisers, delivering roughly 80% of its anticipated audience, according to previous Digiday reporting. Even so, the streamer has reportedly maintained its $55 CPM. With that being the case, an advertiser could garner 127.2 million impressions via Netflix ads with the $7 million slated for a 30-second Super Bowl ad.  

2.3 billion impressions on Instagram Reels

Instagram Reels may feel like it’s three weeks behind TikTok trends with creators posting repurposed TikToks on the platform but the risk of its ban – either via governmental devices or altogether – is zilch compared to TikTok. That may make it more attractive for buyers who say that CPMs on the platform can be anyway between $1-$3 for Reels. With that being the case, a $7 million budget could fetch anywhere between 2.3 billion and 7 billion impressions on the platform. 

1.64 billion impressions on TikTok

Even if TikTok is at risk of a potential ban – Texas Governor Greg Abbott just this week released his plan for a statewide ban of the app – it’s still the buzziest social app around. Ad buyers say that CPMs on the platform can be between $2.50-$4.25. With that being the case, advertisers could get anywhere between 2.8 billion and 1.64 billion impressions with a $7 million budget. That said, marketers can get more bang for their buck with TikTok this year as the app is offering ad credit incentives between 3 to 5% for advertisers spending between $50,000 and $300,000, per pitches viewed by Digiday.

2.3 billion impressions and a $250,000 ad credit on Twitter 

Whether marketers will return to Twitter for the Super Bowl has been a big question in recent weeks. Some, like Pepsi, are back on for the Big Game. While others are testing out TikTok’s ability to cut through the clutter on advertising’s big night. Whatever the case, buyers say CPMs on Twitter for video ads are running between $2-$3. With the $7 million budget, advertisers could score between 2.3 billion and 3.5 billion impressions on the platform. Twitter is also offering incentives, giving advertisers a matching credit up to $250,000 for spending that much on the platform for the Super Bowl. That means advertisers could not only score 2.3 billion impressions but have a $250,000 ad credit. 

2.21 billion impressions on YouTube

Ad buyers say that there are two placements – skippable in-stream ads ($2.72) and bumpers ($3.26) – that blend into the general population, high reach CPM of $3.16. With that being the case, an advertiser could purchase 2.21 billion impressions on YouTube with the $7 million Super Bowl ad budget. 

56 full-page print ads

Advertisers are turning to full-page print ads to make a statement and add some heft to campaigns, as previously reported by Digiday. Sometimes those advertisers go all out. Case in point: Last December, GE took over The New York Times’ print advertising for a day. As Rob Schwartz, chairman at TBWA New York Group, previously told Digiday, a full-page ad in major newspaper can cost between $25,000 and $125,000. With that being the case, an advertiser could get 280 full-page print ads for the lower end cost and 56 print ads on the higher end cost. 

280 million impressions on newsletters

For marketers looking to hone in on a particular audience a bit more, tapping a newsletter takeover may help them do just that. As previously reported by Digiday, CPMs for newsletters can be anywhere between $5 and $25, depending on the newsletter’s total list size. That means that with a $7 million budget, advertisers could get anywhere between 1.4 billion and 280 million impressions via newsletters.

One of the goals for PepsiCo, Kaplan said, is to make sure that during the game, there is a higher level of engagement and conversation about the brand on the social platform, more specifically, Pepsi Zero Sugar. Pepsi will be providing live commentary on the game, linking to in game ad spots for the brand, in addition to talking about this ‘is it real or is it acting’ concept, which pertains to one of its two Super Bowl ads. PepsiCo did not respond to requests for clarification on the company’s earned versus paid media strategy.

That said, according to a report published by The Information, Pepsico plans to spend more than $3 million during the Super Bowl to increase awareness of its brand through Twitter ads the day of the game, which is the highest grossing advertising event on the social media platform for the entire year. And the platform has been pitching $250,000 of free ad space for Super Bowl advertisers to sway them into the app. Whether that offering — which is contingent on advertisers spending the same amount on the platform — will win them back is yet to be determined. So far, Pepsi and Anheuser-Busch InBev are the only brands to have jumped on the offer.

Although they will have a social media war room, Kaplan did not disclose how many team members will be running it, but did add that war rooms are important for a brand that wants to map out its social media strategy for an event the scale of the Super Bowl.

“You never know what’s going to happen even in the game itself. I mean, that’s live sports as well,” said Kaplan. “As it unfolds, how do you react? How do you talk about things? And we’ve done that, I think quite effectively over the last few years, winning a share of voice among all advertisers.”

Adam Dornbusch, CEO of the content management platform, EnTribe said tapping into Twitter’s audience on love sports biggest night of the year is the right move for a brand that wants to get their name out on social media, “Pepsi is smart to have a time-bound activation on social media and the Super Bowl is a great excuse to capture a large participatory audience,” Dornbusch said.

As a result of Musk’s takeover last fall, Twitter became a problematic platform for some advertisers, and many pulled money from the platform to avoid being involved in the mayhem that accompanied the change in ownership.

“Despite its recent challenges, Twitter is still where conversations are happening in real time during tentpole events like The Grammy’s, Golden Globes or the Super Bowl,” said Lauren Douglas, svp, global marketing at the video tech platform, Channel Factory. “It makes sense that brands like Pepsi, that want to expand the real time impact of their investment and tease their commercials in advance, are still seeing an opportunity on Twitter. It will be telling what other brands follow suit, and which events will draw advertisers back to the platform.”

According to Kaplan, Pepsico is aware that consumers are switching from Twitter to new social platforms such as Hive, and Mastodon, but will not run ads during the Super Bowl on these new platforms or popular platforms like TikTok or Instagram.

“The pandemic has really changed the way those war rooms are set up. They used to be actual, in-person war rooms. Now, for us, it’s just a Teams channel,” said Shelby Jacobs, senior social strategist at Dentsu Creative. “Hoping one day we’ll do those [in-person] again, but depends on the landscape of return to office.”

As the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs go head to head at the State Farm Stadium in Arizona, Dentsu Creative, Tinuiti, Modifly and Barstool Sports media will tune into the Big Game remotely, looking for opportunities to chime in on cultural moments and trending topics on social media. Keeping up with those moments in real time allows agencies and their clients to not only become part of those conversations, but to lead them.

Modifly will have about 15 people in its own war room to stay on top of the Big Game, according to Brandon Biancalani, head of paid advertising at Modifly. Meanwhile Barstool is taking a hybrid approach with eight people in the physical war room and 25 more people working remotely across other Barstool brands, said Paul Gulczynski, Barstool’s head of social media.

“We have a team of people who will be in a war room, we’ll have a group chat going. We’ll have a Slack channel going with all different ideas,” he said. “We’ll be watching the game on one screen. We’ll be watching our Barstool personalities [and] watching the game on another screen.”

Meanwhile, as the pandemic has subsided, major brands like State Farm and, of course, the NFL, will have in-person war rooms and activations to quickly react to Super Bowl plays, brand spots and other cultural moments. Given State Farm’s naming rights this year, the insurance brand will be “boots on the ground in Arizona at our stadium,” according to Alyson Griffin, State Farm’s head of marketing. 

Also at the stadium is the NFL, which will have two additional war rooms in Los Angeles and New York City throughout the length of the broadcast. That said, there will be two separate social media teams, one for the Philadelphia Eagles and one for the Kansas City Chiefs, said Ian Trombetta, svp of social, influencer and content marketing for the NFL. 

“It will be very real time in the sense of what’s happening on the field and what’s going on in and around the stadium,” said Trombetta. 

Speed of the Internet

In the age of social media, war rooms have become hubs for real time marketing. Ever since Oreo’s Dunk in the Dark Super Bowl tweet in 2013, in which the cookie brand was able to capitalize on a massive power outage by posting a a tweet that said “You can still dunk in the dark,” it has been a race to capture attention.

This year is no different.  (Read the definitive oral history of the Super Bowl war room here.) 

“The speed we try to move, the speed of the Internet [is] if you’re not first, you’re last with reactions,” said Gulczynski, noting the importance of fast reaction time to hone in, capitalize on pop culture references and become part of unfolding cultural moments.

That said, agencies and their clients have already started social listening strategies, tuning especially into Twitter and TikTok to tap into cultural moments. TikTok, especially, will be a big focus for agencies this year as the platform has continued to gain popularity and recently made a play to own the second screen for the Super Bowl. 

“We love to keep tabs largely on Twitter as this is the fastest platform people offer opinions on (and is also the easiest way to keep track of trends),” said Biancalani in an emailed statement to Digiday. “However, this year we will also have a tab on TikTok with a big focus on pulling user generated feedback to hear how people genuinely reacted to the ads in the TikTok community.”

This year, as with years’ prior, the Super Bowl will have an all hands on deck approach for many agencies and their clients, especially as the digital media landscape continues to be fragmented and new platforms present new opportunities. For Jameka Whitten, CEO and principal publicist of JSW Media Group, it’s the Wild West more this year than previous years, given the changes.

“I’m expecting the unexpected. Anything can happen, you just have to be ready for it,” Whitten said.

Julian Cannon contributed reporting to this story.