Dive Brief:
- Snapchat has big aspirations for Super Bowl advertising if a leaked sales deck titled “The NFL on Snapchat” reported on by Ad Age is any indication.
- The sales material includes ad packages up to $5 million, a very expensive offering for an app that Ad Age pointed out only began taking Super Bowl marketing seriously last year.
- The app's main Super Bowl ad last year was a sponsored lens from Gatorade that garnered 165 million views, a record that stood until Taco Bell’s Cinco de Mayo sponsored lens reached 224 million views during its 24 hours.
Dive Insight:
Super Bowl advertising is big business, and while linear TV spots still gets most of the attention — and even some parties for watching the new blockbuster ads instead of the football action — marketers have been increasingly turning to less-expensive online channels, and social media specifically, to reach the audience of what is typically one of the biggest viewing events of the year. The Super Bowl gets high TV ratings and is an event that almost all viewers are watching in real-time, making second-screen engagements one important digital tactic for reaching viewers.
One possible wrinkle in traditional Super Bowl marketing pushes this year is the fact that TV viewership of football so far this season is down. There are also more ways for fans to watch games online, such as by live streaming some matches on Twitter, which could give marketers another reason to focus on digital marketing.
Even though Snapchat is a relative newcomer to social media advertising and marketing overall, only this year taking ad revenue seriously in advance of the upcoming IPO of parent company Snap, Inc., it clearly is banking on continuing the success of its higher end ad products like sponsored lenses and the proven success brands have had with those formats based around events.
