Which Brands Won the Game Before the Big Game?
Brands new and old have been plenty busy in the lead-up to Super Bowl LIV, as ads this year have already generated:
- 674 million views on TV
- 284 million views on YouTube and Facebook
- 674,000 social actions
- 307,000 positive votes (versus 27,000 negatives)
Notably, fewer brands and ads were live prior to the game this year compared to last year, though 2020’s spots still received more TV impressions (and against less spend). The three consecutive years of declining ads before Sunday could be indicative of a change in approach from brands: trying to get back to the in-game surprises that once created water cooler conversation come Monday morning. However, the spike in online views could also just show an altered strategy emphasizing digital distribution in advance of the game instead.
You can check out a breakdown of pre-game advertising (TV and digital) dating back to 2015 (Super Bowl XLIX) below. And if you’re interested in more NFL advertiser data, check out our reports around regular season ad performance and business outcomes.
TV Ad Viewing Trends
| Year | Ads | Brands | TV Spend | Airings | Primetime airings | TV Impressions | TV Attention |
| 2015 | 240 | 62 | $32,987,723.00 | 6666 | 1222 | N/A | N/A |
| 2016 | 275 | 71 | $33,725,681.00 | 7615 | 1519 | 1,925,927,248 | 90.299921 |
| 2017 | 257 | 65 | $32,498,955.00 | 6389 | 1278 | 1,493,001,615 | 91.408942 |
| 2018 | 270 | 67 | $44,677,703.00 | 16641 | 3156 | 3,891,486,650 | 92.748527 |
| 2019 | 204 | 55 | $20,216,516.00 | 1204 | 289 | 459,198,776 | 93.380206 |
| 2020 | 180 | 49 | $15,511,381.00 | 2327 | 369 | 674,082,009 | 94.953442 |
*Attention is a scoring for second-by-second interruption rates
**Screen level measurement not available in 2015
Digital Engagement
| Year | Online Views | Social Actions | Social Reach | Earned Views | Positive Votes | Negative Votes |
| 2015 | 206,359,592 | 2,513,924 | 99,884,380 | 156,580,549 | 202,091 | 33,182 |
| 2016 | 335,460,617 | 4,186,333 | 603,534,654 | 86,112,483 | 175,314 | 26,544 |
| 2017 | 221,408,554 | 2,030,808 | 616,874,925 | 96,383,004 | 232,220 | 100,302 |
| 2018 | 289,115,267 | 1,825,580 | 246,391,491 | 68,483,246 | 167,934 | 23,081 |
| 2019 | 193,325,609 | 557,095 | 2,774,163,341 | 87,171,096 | 137,045 | 25,113 |
| 2020 | 284,618,232 | 674,480 | 3,407,411,825 | 80,621,089 | 307,703 | 27,636 |
*Social actions include likes, shares, comments, votes across Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, iSpot explicitly against SBLVI ad content
**Reach is the estimated impressions derived from social shares of TV ads
***Digital listening isolates explicit mentions of TV ads
So who won the “game before the game” when it comes to Super Bowl advertising? Amazon Echo certainly commanded a good deal of the online conversation (15.7% of digital share of voice), in part fueled by the star power of Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, who appear together in one of the spots airing during the game. Porsche, returning to the Super Bowl for the first time since 1997, grabbed its own share of the buzz with a heist-themed teaser that conjures up images of the Fast & the Furious franchise.
Pringles’s decision to partner with Rick and Morty appears to have worked, as the show’s dedicated fans have provided significant hype around the spot leaning on its main characters and interdimensional travel. Hyundai goes for a more traditional bit of star power — utilizing actors Rachel Dratch, Chris Evans and John Krasinski for a Boston-themed ad around its new Smart Park — err, “Smaht Pahk” feature.
Secret’s “Secret Kicker” also aims to kick women’s inequality on a national stage. The brand, which isn’t shy about approaching women’s issues with TV ads, utilizes U.S. women’s soccer stars Carli Lloyd and Crystal Dunn to surprise audiences and speak up about women’s opportunities in sports.
Below is a breakdown of the top 10 brands by digital SOV, as well as a separate top 10 for online views as well. Another chart also showcases the top five ads by digital SOV, including spots from Amazon Echo, Hyundai, Porsche, Secret and Pringles (all highlighted above as well).
Digital Share of Voice by Brand
| Brand | Digital SOV |
| Amazon Echo | 15.70% |
| Porsche | 12% |
| Pringles | 10.10% |
| Hyundai | 9.40% |
| Secret | 7.30% |
| Budweiser | 5.80% |
| Doritos | 5.21% |
| Michelob | 4.76% |
| Sabra | 3.26% |
| Google Assistant | 3.24% |
Online Views
| Amazon Echo | 49,116,029 |
| Hyundai | 24,547,813 |
| Microsoft Surface | 20,897,584 |
| Secret | 18,387,726 |
| Budweiser | 16,392,870 |
| Cheetos | 14,743,993 |
| Genesis | 14,028,556 |
| Doritos | 13,351,701 |
| Porsche | 12,685,110 |
| Michelob | 11,154,654 |
Top Creatives by Digital Share of Voice
* Digital SOV
**Facebook views aren’t reflected here, nor do the factor into organic rankings because there is no way to distinguish between paid and earned. FB views are however counted in the total online views calculations above and total 69.8 million as of midnight PST Feb 2, 2020
AIRINGS on TV:
Snickers took advantage of TV, airing its ‘SnickersFixtheWorld: Speakerphone’ 1,602 times, a $2.5 million investment that reached 240 million TVs.
| Brand | Airings |
| Snickers | 1625 |
| Doritos | 165 |
| Avocados de Mexico | 143 |
| Planters | 134 |
| Rocket Mortgage | 67 |
| Mountain Dew | 45 |
| Pepsi Zero Sugar | 4 |
| Procter & Gamble | 3 |
| NFL | 2 |
| Little Caesars Pizza | 2 |
| WeatherTech | 1 |
| Hyundai | 1 |
| Quibi | 1 |
Brands Earning TV Coverage Without $1 in Spend
| Brand | TV Impressions |
| 23912540 | |
| Amazon Echo | 21438437 |
| Genesis | 7479282 |
| Porsche | 7051310 |
| Cheetos | 4966682 |
| Budweiser | 3863004 |
| Kia | 2639428 |
| Olay | 1976835 |
Recapping the NFL Season: 712 brands advertised during national NFL games this season spending $4.5 billion on ads which touched a TV screen over 160 billion times. Compared to last year all numbers are up – 8% more brands, 13.5% more revenues, and 10.7% more TV impressions were delivered. More in iSpot’s NFL Season Recap Report
iSpot tracks trillions of ad impressions against millions of sales activities from hundreds of brands every year and developed benchmarks for brands. A study pm The average total incremental lift brands received from advertising against an NFL game found:
| Industry | Avg. Lift |
| Insurance | 38.46% |
| Specialty Retail | 32.61% |
| Wireless Carriers | 31.54% |
| Food Delivery | 31.18% |
| Automotive | 23.42% |
| Weight Loss | 23.31% |
| Travel | 23.05% |
| eCommerce | 21.30% |
| Local Search & Information | 18.74% |
| Media & Communication | 18.36% |
| Retail Stores | 16.55% |
| Financial Services | 15.32% |
| Electronics and Software | 10.57% |