Music News

Time to Start Talking Super Bowl Commercials. This Means Artists are Hoping to Place Songs in Ads.

NBC is asking $5 million per 30 seconds for an ad during this year’s Super Bowl. Given that up somewhere close to 100 million people will tune at some point during the game, that’s actually not too bad.

It can also be a great opportunity for artists and composers to place songs in an ad. Publishers are scrambling to make deals in hopes of exposing a new song/artist to a wide artist or to give a classic song a boost. This is from Variety.

Ad Age keeps an ongoing tally of who’s in or who’s out on the Super Bowl commercial list right up until game time. Last year, 51 advertisers paid a total of $385 million to reach the estimated 112 million viewers, representing 2.3% of total U.S. broadcast network TV ad spending for the year. NBC is hoping to top the $5 million mark this February by offering agencies a package deal with the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

This year’s advertisers offer a who’s-who of leading American brands, including Coke, which re-ran its three-year-old, multi-racial “It’s Beautiful” spot last year, but promises to return for its 12th consecutive appearance with brand-new creative. Other longtime Bowl participants like Kia (back for its ninth year, this time with L.A. agency David & Goliath), Anheuser-Busch (the game’s leading sponsor, having dropped $30 million apiece in 2015 and 2016), M&Ms (whose characters will return for the first time since 2014, since Mars went with Snickers last year), Weather Tech, Hyundai, GroupOn, Pringles, PepsiCo/Frito Lay’s Doritos, Pringles (makes its debut with a “Flavor Stacking” campaign) and the returning Avocados from Mexico.  Among previous advertisers sitting it out this year are Honda and Wix.com.

For music publishers, the first step in securing a Super Bowl placement is getting inquiries from the agency creatives, a process that often doesn’t take place until the home stretch.

Keep reading.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

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