The Super Bowl is always one of the year’s biggest events and it’s consistently the most-viewed television broadcast of the year. And while tentpole events like the Academy Awards and linear TV, in general, have battled declining viewership for years, the Super Bowl has successfully bucked those trends and has even managed to grow its audience during the same time. It also serves as proof-of-concept that the NFL’s pursuit of new content opportunities to reach younger and more diverse social-first audiences is paying off.
In this article, we’ll explore Super Bowl 2024 marketing with plenty of trends, insights, and ideas for how brands can get in on the ‘big game’ – no multimillion-dollar budget required.
The Super Bowl remains a huge deal for brands
Last year, Super Bowl LVII was the most-watched Super Bowl in history with over 115 million viewers in the United States alone. It currently ranks as the 2nd most-watched broadcast of all time – beaten only by the historic Apollo Moon landing in 1969. The fact that the Super Bowl still commands so much attention despite the decline in linear TV and the rise of social media (and OTT platforms) is a testament to the NFL and its brand partners finding smarter ways to deliver better value to their audiences.
With so many eyeballs on the Super Bowl, it’s a marquee event and cultural touchstone for everyone, brands included, and there are so many different ways marketers and brands can get involved in the Super Bowl hype. Even better, the barrier to entry has never been lower because these days, brands have so many options to get involved due to experiential, social-first, and influencer marketing.
Traditional Super Bowl advertising
The Super Bowl is famous for its commercials and there are plenty of people who will watch the game simply for the ads. After every game, there are countless think-pieces and listicles that rate and rank the best Super Bowl commercials.
Traditional Super Bowl advertising has led to iconic marketing moments such as Apple’s legendary “1984” TV spot, Budweiser’s “Wassup!” campaign that became inescapable in the early 2000s, and more recently, the star-studded “Alexa Loses Her Voice” ad that featured the likes of Jeff Bezos, Gordon Ramsey, and Cardi B.
This year, a 30-second Super Bowl TV spot costs a whopping $7 million but brands are still biting as CBSannounced that its in-game Super Bowl ad slots sold out in early November – ahead of schedule and months before the big game.
It’s 2024 and social media is the primary medium, so brands that don’t have millions of dollars to spend on a single ad shouldn’t worry about losing brand lift or consumers. There are plenty of options for brands of all sizes.
Social-first content and influencer marketing: Huge Super Bowl wins for brands of all sizes
Social-first content should be top-of-mind for every marketer and brand because we’re in an era where a single trending hashtag can eclipse the TV viewership of even the biggest tentpole events, including the Super Bowl.
Last year, “the hashtag #SuperBowlLVII on TikTok alone collected 225 million views, more than double the game’s live viewership,” according to Marketing Dive (emphasis mine), which only hints at the potential reach of social-first content with a carefully chosen hashtag.
In addition to focusing on their owned social-first content, brands can also partner with influencers. The price of an influencer post varies dramatically and depends on the size of their followings – from a low end of $500 for nano-influencers to more than $45,000+ for mega influencers and celebrities.
And even at its most expensive, where brands can pay a mega influencer $45,000 or more for a single social media post, that’s still less than 1% of the $7M price tag you’d pay for an official Super Bowl TV spot, which makes influencer collaborations one of the most accessible and budget-friendly options for brands of any size.
TikTok Tailgate: A touchdown for social-first content
Even huge, established brands like the NFL are fully embracing social-first content, and there’s no better example than the TikTok Tailgate. 2024 marks the 4th iteration of this collaboration between TikTok and the NFL, and it’s only getting bigger and better as it draws in icons and influencers alike.
The TikTok Tailgate serves as the pre-game warm-up party to kick it all off and anyone can stream it live from the NFL’s official TikTok page. The headlining performer at this year’s TikTok Tailgate is Gwen Stefani so you know it’s going to be B-A-N-A-N-A-S!
The fact that the TikTok Tailgate is an in-app event feels tailor-made to engage second screeners (i.e. those scrolling on their phones as they watch TV), and it shows how far the NFL is willing to go to integrate social-first content that combines music (one of TikTok’s greatest strengths) and sports-related content.
In addition to Gwen Stefani, the TikTok Tailgate will also have special guests from the NFL and a handful of yet-to-be-announced TikTok creators.
Super Bowl LVIII: A trio of exciting firsts
The 2024 Super Bowl comes with a surprising number of firsts. Let’s take a look at some of these historic firsts and what they mean for brands, football fans, and marketers.
The first-ever Super Bowl in Las Vegas
While the City of Sin is no stranger to massive events like music festivals, huge industry conventions, and world-renowned shows, Las Vegas officials are predicting that Super Bowl LVIII will be the city’s biggest event ever. But as America’s gambling and betting capital, the Super Bowl has always been a big deal for the city – even before it took on hosting duties – as hotels consistently sell out for every Super Bowl weekend.
In another Super Bowl first, the popular, fan-focused Super Bowl Opening Night on Feb. 5 will be held in the same venue as the big game – Allegiant Stadium – which serves to concentrate all the hype, excitement, and buzz around the venue’s central location.
As Las Vegas gears up to host the Super Bowl, it also comes with a range of changes and security provisions that may affect the look of the iconic Vegas strip – including a “300-foot perimeter around Allegiant Stadium“, giant marketing screens on elevated walkways, and temporary platforms above the Bellagio Fountain for TV broadcasts, to name a few.
In addition to all the official Super Bowl events, there are plenty of legendary musical icons that will be performing in Vegas during Super Bowl week including U2, the Wu-Tang Clan, Adele, Christina Aguilera, Steve Aoki, Marshmallow, and T-Pain.
For brands, particularly in the Hospitality vertical, the influx of visitors, other brands, and activations during Super Bowl week offers a rare opportunity to use social-first marketing to give audiences at home a sneak peek of what’s happening on the ground and make them feel like they’re there, too. Partnering with influencers can help brands get as close to real-time as possible, and we’re looking forward to all the valuable consumer insights that will come out of it as visitors interact with all of the brand activations and experiential events.
The Super Bowl’s first alternate telecast: Live from Bikini Bottom with SpongeBob SquarePants
In addition to the broadcast on CBS, the 2024 Super Bowl will be the first-ever simultaneous broadcast with another network – Nickelodeon – which you may recognize as the kid-friendly network behind animated classics like Rugrats, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and of course, SpongeBob SquarePants. It’s a historic move that builds upon previous collaborations between the NFL and Nickelodeon to attract and engage a younger audience.
Since 2021, Nickelodeon has telecasted four NFL games, and it featured integrations of some of Nickelodeon’s most popular IP in the Madden NFL video games series.The viewership numbers of the previous Nickelodeon broadcasts ranged from 1M to 2M viewers, and it will be very interesting to see how many people watch the ‘Nick-ified’ Super Bowl broadcast.
But either way, Nickelodeon’s alternate Super Bowl telecast represents a significant expansion of its partnership with the NFL.
Sharing hosting duties with SpongeBob and Patrick is Emmy-winning football commentator Nate Burleson, and the kid-friendly broadcast will be rife with animated additions and augmented-reality integrations featuring Nickelodeon iconography such as its popular characters and infamous slime cannons.
The fact that even one of the biggest events of the year is experimenting with new ways to adapt its content for a younger audience shows just how important and lucrative the family and kids vertical is for brands, no matter how big they are.
Promo materials have dubbed this “the collab of a life-slime”, and for a taste of what to expect, check out this clip of the touchdown-celebrating slime cannons from a previous game:
Nickelodeon’s kid-friendly Super Bowl ads
In addition to the animated AR chaos, another difference between the two telecasts is the ads. While some of the most famous Super Bowl ads of all time proudly promoted beer or betting brands, none of those commercials will appear in the Nickelodeon broadcast.
There are reports that ad slots are still available for the Nickelodeon broadcast and they are going for around $300,000 – a fraction of the $7M price tag for the CBS broadcast – which could be a huge opportunity for any kid-friendly brands who take those slots. At the same time, CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, could always use those spots to serve promos for its own library of kid-friendly content and IP for some additional brand synergy.
At the same time, this situation with the Nickelodeon ads is understandable. The ‘regular’ Super Bowl ads are infamous and highly coveted after all, whereas children’s content is more niche and a still-developing lane for the NFL. It’s also the first time the Super Bowl has ever had alternate ad spots like this, so brands may lack awareness of them or be unsure about how it fits into their existing campaigns. But as the NFL continues its expansion into this vertical, it will be interesting to see how brands react. If brands can hone their strategies to fully capitalize on this opportunity, there is enormous potential for future iterations, especially if brands are able to incorporate the Nickelodeon ad spots into their social-first, kid-centric campaigns.
All that being said, the only other question is whether it will be the adults or the kids who’ll be second screening their preferred version of the game — otherwise known as watching it on their phone or tablet while the other broadcast plays on the big widescreen TV.
Sphere of the unknown: The first Super Bowl with the Sphere
Super Bowl LVIII just so happens to be the first Super Bowl since the Las Vegas Sphere opened back in September 2023, making it the perfect chance to show off what the world’s highest-resolution LED screen and its $2.3 billion price tag can accomplish.
From the moment The Sphere went viral on social media, marketers have been salivating at the thought of getting their brand prominently featured in the iconic Las Vegas skyline. The Sphere has already been displaying ads for brands such as Google Cloud, Stranger Things VR for the Meta Quest 3, and T-Mobile, but you can expect brands to pull out all the stops during Super Bowl week to really capitalize on The Sphere’s capabilities.
So expect a plethora of eye-catching experiential activations at The Sphere (in addition to the city at large) because it’s definitely something you’ll want to see – and given The Sphere’s immense size, it will be nearly impossible to miss!
Super Bowl 2024 trends and insights
Here are 5 of the most important and interesting trends surrounding the 2024 Super Bowl.
1. The Super Bowl fans flocking to Vegas are bigger spenders and staying longer
There are two interesting trends that hint at the enormous economic impact that this year’s Super Bowl will have on Las Vegas.
One, hotels are seeing guest bookings expand from a single weekend (which is typical for previous Super Bowls) to the entire week instead, which means visitors are booking longer stays so they can be there for events like Super Bowl Opening Night and all the other celebrations and hype in the lead-up throughout the week.
The second trend is the people who are coming to Vegas. According to the president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, “The visitor that comes to a Super Bowl tends to be a higher-spending visitor than our typical visitor.”
Together, these trends are major reasons why Las Vegas officials are predicting the 2024 Super Bowl will generate anywhere from $500M to $700M in additional economic impact when compared to the previous Super Bowls not hosted by the city. It’s an especially big deal for the Travel and Hospitality verticals (namely, airlines and hotels) and the Super Bowl offers a pivotal, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to capitalize on the big game like never before.
2. More women than ever are watching NFL football – thanks, Taylor!
You might call it the ‘Taylor Swift effect’ but the NFL has been saying for years women increasingly are tuning into football, and data from the last few years backs it up.
In fact, the number of women who planned on watching the Super Bowl increased by 25% in the last two years!
One big question on many marketers’ minds is “what effect will Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s romance have on Super Bowl viewership?”. Because ever since Taylor Swift attended that fateful Sept. 24 game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Chicago Bears, Travis Kelce’s jersey sales shot up 400% as he gained more than 500K new Instagram followers in a single day!
While Super Bowl advertising has typically been heavily male-dominated, with so many women watching football these days, there’s a golden opportunity for brands in the Beauty and Wellness verticals to create football-related, social-first content that specifically targets women.
3. Snacks: More popular than the game?
For many people, it seems like they aren’t watching the Super Bowl for the game in and of itself – it’s more of an excuse to get together and have a great time as only 49% of people polled said the game was their top priority. Meanwhile, 56% said they were more interested in the food (can you really blame them?) and 54% were there for the party.
These results only underline how the Super Bowl has gone beyond a mere sports game to become a cultural event that rivals even some of the biggest national holidays. It’s also a chance for brands in the food, fast food and food delivery industries to shine! From tailgate parties serving up delicious BBQ to brands known for their pub grub, pizza, and chicken wings, game day snacks are always a huge trend on social media. As QSRs prep for a flurry of mobile orders, they typically offer plenty of BOGO deals, party platters, and other Super Bowl-related discounts and promotions.
4. Super Bowl Halftime Shows haven’t targeted boomers for years
We’ve already talked about the Nickelodeon broadcast that’s targeting kids, but there’s also been a more subtle shift over the years where the NFL has increasingly been targeting millennials and Gen Z audiences over the baby boomers.
Nowhere is it more obvious than the performer picks for the Super Bowl Halftime Show. This year, Usher is the headliner to nostalgia-bait the millennials who are beginning to realize the headliners are no longer the Bruce Springsteens or Rolling Stones of their dad’s generation.
The 2020s have seen the likes of Shakira and Jennifer Lopez in 2020; The Weeknd in 2021; Rihanna in 2023; and, saving the best for last (in my humble opinion), Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, and Kendrick Lamar in 2022.
For those wondering, “When did the halftime show stop targeting my dad and start targeting me?”, perhaps it was back in 2010 when dads rocked out to The Who and then were puzzled by The Black Eyed Peas a year later.
But all of this makes sense when you consider how the buying power of millennials and Gen Z is gradually increasing. While boomers as a generation still have the largest net worth, it makes sense that brands want to expand their footholds within the younger generations in the hopes of creating loyal, life-long customers for decades.
5. Rise of second screening
We mentioned before how the TikTok Tailgate seems like it was specially made with second screeners in mind, and the Super Bowl is a golden opportunity for brands to create social-first content to reach them.
After all, 70% of people use another device while watching TV, which means most of us are either texting friends, scrolling social media, or checking our emails while the TV’s on. Those between the ages of 18-24 are the most likely to be second screening at 79%, and so it makes perfect sense that the NFL would partner with TikTok for the tailgate party to authentically meet younger audiences where they live and breathe content.
Brands beware: Trademarks and other Super Bowl dos and don’ts
We hope that you’re feeling inspired and excited to create some social-first Super Bowl content of your own. But the NFL is very protective of its trademarks so before you publish that post, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Super Bowl don’ts: Trademarks to avoid
Have you ever wondered why so many brands refer to the Super Bowl as the “Big Game” instead?
It’s because the term “Super Bowl” is a registered trademark of the NFL and has been since 1969. This means that unless brands have permission from the NFL (typically by being an official sponsor, which generally costs tens of millions of dollars), they can’t use the term “Super Bowl” for commercial use. That’s why so many brands use “Big Game” as a substitute in their Super Bowl promotions, whether it be social media posts, discount codes, or any other tactic meant to boost sales.
In addition to the “Super Bowl”, here are some other things to avoid in your marketing materials if you aren’t an official Super Bowl sponsor:
- Super Sunday
- Gameday
- Back to Football
- 1st and goal
- Logos for the NFL and Super Bowl
- Team logos, names, or uniforms
- Player’s names and likenesses
The NFL isn’t shy about protecting its trademarks, either, and brands that violate it may receive a cease-and-desist letter if the league catches on with the threat of legal action if they don’t stop.
Super Bowl dos
So if you can’t use “Super Bowl”, “Super Sunday”, team names, or players, what’s a brand to do? There are plenty of ways around it, especially with a little creativity.
We’ve already mentioned how many brands will use the “Big Game” instead and you can also use a football theme to further drive the point home, along with football-related terms like ‘touchdown’, ‘field goal’, and ‘end zone’.
If you’re not creating sponsored content with an influencer or otherwise promoting something, you have a lot more freedom. You can report on, talk, and write about the Super Bowl as long as it falls under “fair use”. And if you want to be extra careful to avoid infringing on any NFL trademarks, consider including a disclosure statement such as “This campaign (or event) is not associated with or endorsed by the NFL”.
