The 2024 Super Bowl generated an ironic achievement. It was blessed with an estimated record number of 120.3 million TV viewers on CBS alone. But the Super Bowl ads were the weakest in a decade. It’s time to ensure that Super Bowl advertising delivers!
SUPER BOWL ADS 2024 were the weakest in a decade, according to Michael Wolfe, CEO of Bottom-Line Analytics (BLA)™. This result comes from a seven-year study by BLA on Super Bowl advertising and ROI, which shows ad effectiveness has declined since 2020, and now equals that of 2013. This year’s ads suffered from poor Brand Awareness and Message Clarity, which resulted in poor Purchase Intent. However, the ads did well in Likeability, Reputation and Word-of-Mouth.
ABX Advertising Benchmark Index™ has supplied all Super Bowl ad effectiveness data to BLA for the past eleven years. All were evaluated with The ABX Index™, a composite score of the most critical of 14 measured KPIs. The study toplines revealed the ads were:
- No better than sponsors’ ads at other times of the year.
- Thirty-five times more costly than the normal national :30 spot.
- Less likely to motivate viewers to buy the advertised products.
- Unlikely to generate a positive ROI for the advertisers.
The 2024 Super Bowl generated an ironic achievement. It was blessed with an estimated record number of 120.3 million TV viewers on CBS alone, according to Nielsen. Unfortunately, many advertisers missed a huge opportunity this year.
CAVEAT: This study focuses solely on the analysis of Super Bowl ads during the game itself. It does not cover pre-game, promotional efforts or social media campaigns run by sponsors and advertisers.
Effectiveness of TV Commercials
This is the seventh consecutive year that Michael Wolfe, CEO of Bottom-Line Analytics, has written this evaluation. The purpose has been to derive a fact-based assessment of the value of Super Bowl advertising.
Ad Effectiveness Data Provider
It makes sense that evaluating ad effectiveness starts with a large and reliable source of advertising creative copy tests. As mentioned above ABX has been our main source for measuring ad effectiveness. This is because it has a very large and historical global database of 425,000+ evaluated ads. For the 2024 Super Bowl, we evaluated 63 brands’ in-game TV spots.
The Big Picture View of the 2024 Super Bowl
As mentioned above, the 2024 Super Bowl had a record number of viewers, which is key to attracting advertisers. While more eyeballs are a good thing, the decline in ad effectiveness scores is not. As seen in Exhibit 1, the trend in Super Bowl ad effectiveness since 2020 has been declining.
- For the first time, the average ad effectiveness score for all Super Bowl 2024 ads hit 97. This is below the ABX Index™ norm for all ads.
- Also, for the first time, 48% (n=30) of these individual ads performed below norm.
This is the worst performance in 10 years and is clearly the number one issue going forward.
The Cost of Super-Bowl Advertising
The networks selling Super Bowl advertising do better than striking gold. For the second year in a row, the average cost for a 30-second Super Bowl ad was $7 million. This is about 35 times more than a regular national 30-second ad.
Exhibit 2 shows the progression of Super-Bowl ad costs over time. Since 2014, the average cost of ads for the Super Bowl has risen by 5.8% each year. This is more than double the national media increase of 2.4% per year
2024 Super-Bowl Ad Performance: Where the Rubber Meets the Road.
Given the above, one must ask: is there really a positive ROI from Super-Bowl advertising?
Exhibit 3 shows an overlay of the 2023 and 2024 individual scores of each ad aired.
- In 2024, 30 ads (48%) fell below the ABX Index norm of 100. (Blue line below)
- In 2023, only 11 ads (17%) fell below norm. (Red line below). Too many of these ads were simply not breaking through to the audience and were likely wasted efforts.
The ROI of 2024 Super Bowl Ads
If there is positive ROI in Super Bowl advertising, we need to link ABX Index scores to sales. Bottom-Line Analytics has done this and the sales response to ad creative scores is summarized in Exhibit 4.
By connecting Super Bowl ad scores to the sales response curve, we can estimate sales increases. This helps us find the returns-per-dollar for brands with published retail sales data. Exhibit 4 is thus a model for determining ROIs of individual Super-Bowl ads.
Super Bowl 2024 Returns for 15 Brands
Below on Exhibit 5, we plotted returns for fifteen of the featured ads. The brands selected were mostly food, beverage or retailer brands whose retail sales were readily available. The key metric used was the two-week average of sales derived from annual brand sales. (Using two-week instead of one-week sales revenues tips the results towards more ads in favor of positive profit).
The results shown below reflect the positive or negative profit-per-dollar cost from the calculated sales lift. As the results show, 4 of the 15 ads were profitable, while the remaining 11 were not. The profitable ads tended to be from brands with higher sales revenue and higher ABX Index creative scores. While this is not conclusive proof, we think that short-term positive ROI is uncommon for Super Bowl advertising.
Comparing Super Bowl Ad Effectiveness with Other Sports Properties
Exhibit 6 looks at whether Super Bowl ads are more noticeable than ads for brands in other sports. Here we compare 2024 Super Bowl ad effectiveness scores with those of other sports properties, and with other football-linked ads.
Football property ads slightly outperform Basketball & Baseball advertising. Surprisingly, Super Bowl ads are not better than other football ads. And, they are much worse than the latest World Cup ads.
Are Super Bowl Ads More Effective than Brand Ads Throughout the Year?
In last year’s report, there was a large gap showing Super Bowl ads underperforming against sponsor ads during the rest of the year. The good news is that the 2024 Super Bowl ads were at parity with ads during other parts of the year.
This year’s Super Bowl ads’ advantages included being Liked more, with a higher Reputation, and Word-of-Mouth as the highest KPI of all.
In contrast, the Super Bowl ads were also Disliked more, were Less Relevant and did not motivate consumers to Take any Action, such as:
- Contacting the company
- Visiting the website
- Looking for more information
- Planning to buy
- Recommending the company
- Talking to someone about it
A brand with declining sales is not likely to experience a solid turnaround by running a Super Bowl ad.
For an analysis of the best and worst five ads based on “Any Action,” read the recent ABX blog post.
The post is titled “Seventy-Two Percent of Super Bowl Ads Miss the Mark.
The Demographics of Super Bowl Advertising
On Exhibit 8, we see creative scores across age, income, gender, and ethnic groups. The results show that Gen Z (ages 18 to 24) scored the ads the highest overall. The older group (ages 50 and up) usually rate Super Bowl ads the lowest. However, this year, they actually gave the largest year-over-year increase in ad ratings. In terms of genders, white males still show the highest scores, and females also showed a solid increase from last year.
Super Bowl 2024 attracted a more diverse audience. However, we still have the largest share of below-average ABX Index norms in the last ten years
Exhibit 8 shows that Super-Bowl TV audiences are skewing to younger ages. The chart below is provided by Statista.
Exhibit 8: Likelihood of Watching the Super Bowl
How Prospective Super Bowl Advertisers Can Hit it Big in 2025 and Beyond
Prospective Super Bowl advertisers can overcome these problems and achieve solid business results by adopting the following tips:
- Don’t be dazzled by the huge audience. Remember that advertisers get a better return from their national ad campaigns.
- Remember Super Bowl ads are 35 times more expensive. Is it worth it?
- Don’t be dazzled by the lights! Make sure your Creatives don’t over-produce the ad in cool audio and visuals that have no relationship to the brand.
- Place your Call-to-Action early and often.
- Place your brand logo early and often, so do not wait until the last screen!
- Ensure your message is clear. Don’t leave your audience confused!
- Be mindful of the diversity of audiences.
1 Carrie Gill, VP, Group Media Director, MMGY, “The impact of inflation on media buying in 2023,” 6/14/2023.
About Bottom-Line Analytics
Bottom-Line Analytics (BLA) has broad experience in marketing analytics covering marketing ROI, modeling, social media analytics, pricing, and brand strategy. Michael Wolfe is the CEO and leads the team. He has over 30 years of experience in marketing analytics on both the client and consulting sides. Michael has worked for Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods, Kellogg’s, and Fisher-Price. He and BLA have worked with companies like AT&T, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Hyatt, L’Oreal, FedEx, and Starbucks. Michael has analyzed and written Super Bowl Advertising Effectiveness Reports for seven years. Contact Michael at mjw@bottomlineanalytics.com at 770-485-0270
About ABX
Advertising Benchmark Index, (ABX), is a leading ad effectiveness and consumer insights company with the largest global syndicated measurement solution, which evaluates ad creative effectiveness across all media types, competitors, countries, social sensitivities, demographic groups and more. The unique ABX Measurement Method ensures that every ad is measured the same way. This applies to 14 KPIs and many variables. This method helps create accurate forecasts and shows how ads relate to revenues.