Every year we gather around our televisions to watch the NFL’s annual football championship. This year the Baltimore Ravens withstood a late run from the San Francisco 49ers to send Ray Lewis into retirement with a ring.
While the game is important, the commercials have become a large part of Super Bowl Sunday. To some, the halftime show and commercials have become more important as the game itself.
This year’s game had the largest television audience ever. More than111 million viewers tuned in to the Super Bowl game this year. The average for regular season NFL games is usually 11.5 million.
As the prices rise, so does the audience’s expectation.
Commercial prices first hit $1 million in 1995. After that, commercial prices kept rising. In the 2011 Super Bowl, advertising for a 30-second commercial cost around $3 million. This year’s price was about $3.8 million.
Companies spend a huge amount of money working on commercials that will leave a lasting impression on the public, while other companies spend millions on a commercial that wastes the public’s time.
One of the commercials receiving the most criticism is the first GoDaddy ad. This was actually one of the least sexually suggestive commercials the domain site company has produced, but it was still appalling for a different reason. Seeing the kiss was bad enough; hearing it made it a lot worse.
Unfortunately, this year had many commercials where the audience were left thinking “did you really spend more than $3 million on this?”
Though most of the commercials seemed like a waste of time and money, there were some highlights.
A couple of commercials were fun, witty and actually got the message across without confusing us or wasting our time.
The Taco Bell commercial was a crowd favorite. It provided laughs for the audience and still promoted the company without overdoing it.
Doritos, which has established a legacy for funny Super Bowl commercials, made another classic with the “Goat 4 Sale” ad. It reminded us how funny goats are.
Overall, the commercials this year did not live up to the money that was spent on them. Hopefully, next year the $4 million spent on commercials will be worth our time.
