With 117 million people slated to tune in to this year’s Super Bowl, the big game will once again reign supreme as the most-watched single televised event. In fact, 19 of the top 20 most-watched broadcasts of all time are past Super Bowls (#11 on the list is the series finale of M*A*S*H).
Suffice it to say, the National Football League’s marquee event is must-see TV for the global consumer, which, in turn, makes it a highly sought after event from a sponsorship and advertising standpoint. And, as the game has gotten bigger, so to have the ads – and the cost to participate. Back in 1965, when Super Bowl I aired on both NBC and CBS, a 30-second ad spot averaged between $37,500 and $42,500. Today, a brand can expect to fork over around $8 million for that same 30-second ad – a 200,000 percent increase.
What we get, though, are some of the most iconic, entertaining, culturally impactful and, sure, even sometimes controversial – but always memorable – Super Bowl ads that will be talked about until the end of time.
This year, major appliance brand Bosch will be featured during the fourth quarter of the game in a spot that features some serious star power. In a teaser for the full ad, which aired in January, Antonio Banderas is seen next to an actor clad as late WWE superstar “Macho Man” Randy Savage, offering to open a jar of pickles for the muscly champ.
“For the first time in Bosch’s 139-year history, the brand is making its debut at the Big Game – kicking off a multi-year joint campaign between the company’s home appliances (BSH) and power tools divisions to drive the larger brand into the minds of consumers across North America,” Bosch said in a statement to NMG. “The campaign is a bold step to ‘reintroduce’ Bosch to North America – enabling the brand to step out into the spotlight and highlight the company’s precision engineered consumer products that make life better for people everywhere.”
The witty spot sparked memories of past Super Bowl ads run by some of our other partners across many different categories. Here’s a look back:
Sealy, Super Bowl XLV Ad
Wells Fargo, Super Bowl XXVII
GE also featured two ad spots during Super Bowl XLVI, one of which featured employees from their Louisville-based appliance manufacturing facility – part of a five-year, $1 billion investment intended to boost the appliance division. The other focused on the energy-producing plant in Schenectady, New York.