If you were one of the 114.4 million people who were chomping down on 1.25 billion chicken wings and 12.5 million pizzas on February 1, 2015 for Super Bowl XLIX, you were not only watching the biggest television event in history, you were also watching the culmination of approximately $359 million of advertising spending. This year’s Super Bowl network, NBC, asked for upward of $4.5 million per 30-second advertising slot. This year, as with past years, the advertisers pulled out all the stops. From Budweiser’s “Lost Dog” to Nationwide’s controversial “Boy,” the ads evoked all sorts of emotions and feelings. Some were funny, like the Avocados From Mexico “First Draft Ever,” and some were sad, like the aforementioned Nationwide commercial. And then you had Liam Neeson threatening revenge, striking a feeling of either fear (if you were the one on the other side of his game) or excitement for theRead More

Ask many Americans and they will assure you that Super Bowl Sunday is about more than the game. The first Sunday in February is a day that athletes and sports fans prepare for from the weeks even before the official NFL season begins; but not everyone who turns on the big game is watching because of their passion for football or to root for their favorite team. Super Bowl Sunday is a defining moment for the teams and cities involved, but the day is also a big deal for marketing teams around the globe and the products and services they sell. With the national audience, marketers want to make their commercials memorable to viewers. This year, Coca-Cola released an ad that will stick in viewers’ minds, and social media accounts, for a long time. During the Super Bowl, Coca-Cola released a commercial titled “It’s Beautiful,” set to Katharine Lee Bates’Read More

Seattle Seahawks defeat Denver Broncos, 43-8 Steve Sabol, the late founder of NFL Films, once said, “Life is great. Football is better,” and there is perhaps no better description of the feeling many Americans have for Super Bowl Sunday. It’s not just a football game; it’s an experience, a celebration of our collective interests as a nation, a four-and-a-half-hour break from everyday life and our country’s favorite unofficial holiday. This year’s edition was unique in a number of ways, primarily because the NFL decided that Super Bowl XLVIII would go on Broadway, as the game between the NFC’s Seattle Seahawks and the AFC’s Denver Broncos would be hosted by New York City and be played just across the Hudson River in East Rutherford, New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium. New York became the first-ever cold weather city to host a football game outdoors that is typically played in cities like Jacksonville, TampaRead More