What’s Different About Super Bowl Ads This Year

Every year, Super Bowl ads exhibit new trends based on social trends and current events. So, it’s no surprise that this year’s batch would be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The question going into the game isn’t whether the ads will change to reflect the outbreak but rather how.

You can expect this year’s Super Bowl commercials to reflect both a change in creative focus and in who’s advertising, notes media expert and PwC Principal CJ Bangah. But the specifics will depend on who’s advertising.

“The creative focus of ads, and how they change from pre-COVID planning efforts, can vary quite a bit by industry. The product, service or experience being advertised—and how that marketing message lands post COVID vs. pre-COVID for some organizations—changed quite a bit,” she says.

Super Bowl ads are occasionally political, but mostly they’re aimed at keeping the mood light and happy, in step with the game. So, don’t expect to see ads that take viewers out of that mindset.

“As a general rule of thumb, many marketers chose to focus on ensuring their COVID creative would not cause consumers distress or negatively influence their buying decision,” Bangah says.

She notes brands cutting back on ads showing lots of people in the same space, such as at a concert or football game, creative that wouldn’t have warranted a second thought in pre-pandemic times.

“There are other examples where brands associated their message, values and consumer messages around a shared sense of purpose and commitment to a better life – during and after COVID,” Bangah says.

The pandemic also impacted the decision on whether to advertise at all in the big game. Budweiser, for instance, is sitting out the Super Bowl for the first time in nearly four decades, but some dot-coms seized the opportunity to swoop in and grab ads.

Yet budgets weren’t the only reason companies passed on a Super Bowl ad.

“Marketing budgets for many organizations were impacted by the economic performance associated with COVID and the consumer behavior changes—e.g., more time at home, watching TV via OTT, etc., all impacted the distribution method for creative content as well,” Bangah says.

While Super Bowl advertising has always been its own monolith—it doesn’t necessarily predict greater trends in sports spending because the costs are so prohibitively expensive—in this case, it does project a few things worth keeping an eye on longer term. As Bangah notes, where consumers spend time and consume content, ad dollars follow

“The biggest difference in advertising post-pandemic will largely pivot around additional ad dollars going to new formats and companies evolving their advertising planning aligned to broader industry ecosystem changes,” she says.