So, the going price is $8 million for a 30-second commercial spot during this year’s Super Bowl. To put this in perspective, it would cost less than 5 million dollars to be in the entirety of every issue and option of LGBTQ print, digital and social media and streaming platforms in the LGBTQ market for the whole year. I imagine that if you were looking to reach men (sports marketing’s main demographic) with a higher discretionary income than the average American (virtually every non-essential consumer product target) or wanting to start a trend- a metric the LGBTQ consumer has long been known for… your money would have been better spent in this media market.
I understand how companies don’t want to take risks or be controversial, yet just showing up in LGBTQ media would have its own impact to this consumer group… or I imagine in any minority’s media right now. The old “Impact vs. Exposure” from my marketing class comes to mind. The beauty about today’s non-controversial vanilla-plain-Jane-everything creative is that showing up IS impactful enough in these trying times and would certainly be noticed by the LGBTQ consumer or any consumer of minority media.
This whole Super Bowl reminded me of a party you were forced to go to – but you also did not want to seem like a stick-in the-mud and so you put on the happy face and got through it. The ads could have been on any channel at any time, and nothing left a lasting impression. Well, the one hit for me was the Michelob Ultra pickle ball commercial – it made me smile, but only to bring about a frown, that I just could not purchase an AB/ InBev brand because I have not forgotten how they started and then fed the anti-trans trend that continues today. Ah, what to do when a beloved product is caught up in hate…. I know, find another brand which is just what I’ve done.
This Superbowl felt like an Olympic Show in a communist country…big production, hollow smiles and something creepy just underneath the surface, like those cowboy head ads or the Snoop Dogg / Tom Brady moment where you just wonder… what or who made them feel the need to include that?
