The Super Bowl Is America's "Spring Festival Gala." What Stands Out This Year?

In America it draws the same festive crowds as China's Spring Festival Gala. The difference is that some viewers tune in just for the ads.

Since 1967, the last Sunday in January or the first Sunday in February has been the Big Day for many Americans. That is the day the National Football League (NFL) crowns its champion in the Super Bowl.

By one count, parties averaging 17 people spring up across the country every year on this day, and Americans spend about US$50 million on food, the second-biggest single day of the year after Thanksgiving. That is why Chinese commentators like to joke that it is America's Spring Festival Gala. Beyond the party, it is also worth a great deal of money.

Measured by average revenue per game day from media, tickets, sponsors and licensees, the Super Bowl is the most valuable sporting event in the world, ahead of the Summer Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. NBC projects that the 2015 Super Bowl will draw 120 million television viewers, one-third of the U.S. population. According to AC Nielsen, its ratings run at roughly 40% to 60%.

During halftime in 2013, the audience grew by 50 million, which means these people came mainly to watch the ads. In 2014, people spent 6.3 million hours on YouTube watching Super Bowl ads.

Huge exposure, huge ratings and a strong reputation for advertising lead advertisers and agencies to take the Super Bowl seriously. Whether a brand can win a place in the 2,100 seconds of total ad time has become a test of whether it is truly rich, whether it is a national brand that takes its role seriously, and whether it is a rising newcomer.

Beyond the scramble for a slot, the Super Bowl also works as a barometer of America's social and economic mood at the time.

In the late 20th century, a wave of young tech companies appeared at the Super Bowl. The peak came in 2000, when 16 companies with ".com" in their names advertised. The next year the number fell to 3. The best-known case was Pets.com, which advertised at the 2000 Super Bowl and went bankrupt within 10 months as the internet bubble burst.

After the internet bubble came the subprime crisis. Ameriquest, then one of the country's largest home lenders, ran its first Super Bowl ad in 2005. That same year, at its peak, it also sponsored the Rolling Stones' U.S. tour. Just two years later it came to a miserable end, bought by Citibank. The New York Times wryly called Ameriquest "the biggest winner" of its Super Bowl experience.

After unemployment peaked in 2009, U.S. per-capita GDP grew 2% in 2012 and the economy began to recover. It was an important moment for Americans. That year Chrysler bought a halftime slot for a two-minute ad titled "It's Halftime in America," which showed the country climbing out of hard times and carried real social weight. Since then, the Super Bowl's advertiser list has returned to traditional companies.

If the advertisers at Super Bowl XLIX in 2015 hold any surprise, Mexican avocados are surely one. They arrived out of nowhere, like a hidden Easter egg, but their sales are all but certain to jump. And because they come from Mexico, there is probably some geopolitical meaning too.

Skittles, which belongs to Mars and replaces its stablemate M&M's, is also taking the Super Bowl stage. The candy has little to do with "power," but Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch is always chewing candy on the sideline and wears cleats decorated with it, so the brand already gets plenty of free publicity in football. And just a few days ago, the Seahawks came from behind to beat the Green Bay Packers and will now meet the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

BuzzFeed, the news aggregator that has been so hot lately, is also about to air its first Super Bowl ad. It stands for the newcomers who believe they are the future. Which brands are appearing at this year's Super Bowl, and why? We have sorted them into the following groups:

If you're truly rich, you pour in time and money to show you're a pillar

Anheuser-Busch InBev

It is not only a Super Bowl regular but also the biggest spender.

In 2014 it aired 5 ads, 2 for Budweiser and 3 for Bud Light. But its sales have been poor lately. In 1988 it sold 50 million barrels of beer; in 2013 it sold only 16 million. Because it is no longer Americans' favorite beer, The Wall Street Journal recently speculated that it would drop the Clydesdale horses that embody the brand. In fact, Anheuser-Busch InBev may run 210 seconds of ads in 2015, about the same as last year, and has said plainly that the Clydesdales will stay. At US$4.5 million per 30 seconds, its Super Bowl bill this year would reach US$31.5 million.

Nationwide

After 7 years away, Nationwide is back. One reason is that it can afford it: its marketing budget in 2013 was US$300 million, and its results are still climbing this year. The other is that it unveiled a new logo in September 2014 and badly needs exposure to make viewers familiar with it.

Kia

This is Kia's sixth year at the Super Bowl. To promote its new K900, Kia ran a 90-second ad in 2014, "Challenge the Luxury You Know," borrowing elements from The Matrix. This year, Kia says, former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan will promote the new 2016 Kia Sorento. As a subsidiary of South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group, Kia has always taken the U.S. market seriously. In 2013 it sold 580,000 vehicles in the U.S., ranking eighth behind brands such as Ford and Toyota. Watching how well Japanese carmakers are known in America, Kia hopes the Super Bowl will win it some fans too.

Toyota

In 2008 Toyota overtook GM as the world's largest carmaker. With cash to spare, it has now appeared at the Super Bowl three years running. This year, Toyota says, Paralympic athlete Amy Purdy will star in an ad about a father.

Loctite

Loctite glue is back for a second straight year, spending roughly its entire annual marketing budget on a single ad. That is going all in. The second home-improvement brand to advertise at the Super Bowl, after Master Lock in 1995, Loctite is also selling quite well.

I am the future, and on this stage I must tell every American once: I am the future

One group comes from industries that represent where things are heading. Their ads feel fresh to viewers and make people more confident in those industries, though people tend to overlook the bubble that may already have formed; Pets.com is the best example. The other group reflects how warm or cold the American economy is, and that shows up mostly in the creative themes. With the U.S. economy starting to recover in 2015, for example, The Huffington Post predicts that this year's Super Bowl ads will certainly feature fathers, same-sex couples and racial equality.

BuzzFeed

This news site, which made its name with listicles, has become one of America's most successful media brands in recent years. Its traffic has overtaken The New York Times, making it the third-largest news site in the U.S. It also turned down a US$1 billion offer from Disney.

BuzzFeed will make its Super Bowl debut with a 60-second cut of "Regarding The Big Game," episode 5 of the Dear Kitten series its animation unit makes with the cat food brand Friskies. The ad will run only in a few U.S. cities with many cat lovers. The first four episodes of Dear Kitten have drawn about 30 million views, so the ad is already eagerly awaited.

Mophie

Mophie, a startup founded in 2005, mainly makes battery cases for the iPhone. What sets it apart from many hardware companies is that it passed Apple's official MFi certification and is allowed to sell in Apple stores. As iPhone sales keep climbing, Mophie has risen with them. Its official explanation for going to the Super Bowl is that it wants the 95% of Americans who have never heard of it to know its name.

Carnival Corp

This is the cruise group's first Super Bowl. It seems to be betting on a simple idea: the economy has recovered, people have spare money, and now is the time for them to think of a luxury cruise.

Dove Men+Care

Unilever launched Dove Men+Care in 2010, and the brand appeared at the Super Bowl that same year. Four years later, Dove Men+Care plans to launch a "Celebrating Modern Men" campaign this year. According to Adweek, Dove's strategy will certainly not be to show off sex appeal; it will probably follow last year's Father's Day ad and keep celebrating fatherhood.

I am a national brand. Without me, would the Super Bowl still be the Super Bowl?

What these brands share is that they show up at the Super Bowl with a sense of mission. Being a permanent fixture does not mean their results are good every year; sometimes they show up through gritted teeth.

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola had a poor 2014. Its third-quarter net profit fell 13.8% from a year earlier, and its shares suffered their biggest single-day drop on the day it reported. To reverse the slide, it announced cost cuts and global layoffs. Even so, Coca-Cola will still be at the Super Bowl. But after two 60-second ads last year, this year it is running only one.

Pepsi

As it did last year, Pepsi bought one 30-second ad for the 2015 Super Bowl and is also the title sponsor of the halftime show. Its rival Coca-Cola, well aware of its place in American society, took on social issues such as race and same-sex couples in 2014 with an ad called "It's Beautiful," in which "America the Beautiful" was sung in eight languages. An ad so focused on social issues follows the same path as Chrysler's in 2012.

Doritos

Doritos, PepsiCo's chip brand, is appearing at the Super Bowl for the ninth straight year. According to market research firm IRI, Doritos dominates the U.S. market, with sales roughly double those of second-place Tostitos. On the second-biggest retail spending day of the year, Doritos' presence really matters, and Americans have not tired of it; eating it has become a tradition. This year it keeps its "Crash the Super Bowl" theme and has launched a website inviting viewers to vote on 10 ads.

Snickers

Because the product itself stands for strength, Snickers, which belongs to Mars along with Skittles and M&M's, has naturally spent heavily at the Super Bowl for years. Breaking with its usual secrecy, Snickers says it will reveal some details of this year's ad in advance on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. What we know so far is that it will continue its "You're Not You When You're Hungry" campaign. At a sporting event built on physical strength, it would be strange if Snickers stayed away.

Of course, spending wisely still pays most, because the Super Bowl still works

In 2009, Cars.com's brand awareness rose 12% after its Super Bowl ad; CareerBuilder's job seekers rose 68% in the three months after its ad aired; traffic to Audi's website rose 20% within 30 days; and Hyundai's new-car sales grew 27% even as the U.S. industry sales index fell 22%. For the most part, the Super Bowl really does work.

McDonald's

McDonald's is a national brand too, but it has always been cautious about the Super Bowl. In 1993 it hired NBA stars Michael Jordan and Larry Bird for The Showdown, which became a classic of Super Bowl advertising. After that, though, it took little part. After poor results in Russia and Asia-Pacific in 2014 and its worst U.S. same-store results since 2003, McDonald's decided to return to the Super Bowl in 2015 and is pushing its recent "I'm Lovin' It" campaign hard.

Victoria's Secret

Victoria's Secret, which first advertised at the Super Bowl back in 1999, will appear for the second time this year as part of its Valentine's Day campaign. In 2014 it faced a boycott on social media for calling its models' figures "the perfect body." This Super Bowl appearance owes something to that episode; it hopes to repair its recently damaged reputation.

GoDaddy

Since it shot to fame through Super Bowl advertising in 2005, GoDaddy.com, the world's largest domain registrar, has appeared at the Super Bowl 11 years in a row. On the back of those ads, its market share jumped from 16% in 2005 to 32% in 2012. But after usually buying two slots, this year GoDaddy will buy only one. Since it started courting women who own small businesses in the past two years, its Super Bowl ads no longer grab attention with sexual content; this year they star well-known American racing driver and GoDaddy spokeswoman Danica Patrick.

Squarespace and Wix.com

Following GoDaddy, its competitors Squarespace and Wix.com are coming too.

Squarespace is an internet company that offers website content management, web hosting and website building. It is not a long-time fixture like GoDaddy, but this is its second Super Bowl. Founded in 2003, the company is doing well, ranks near the top of the do-it-yourself website business, and is valued at around US$10 billion. On November 17, 2014, it bought Brace.io, a company that provides cloud hosting to companies such as Dropbox and Amazon. The other internet company appearing at this year's Super Bowl, Wix.com, also builds do-it-yourself websites. The Israeli company, founded in 2006, went public in November 2013.

BMW, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and other carmakers

Audi, Honda and Lincoln, usually familiar faces at the Super Bowl, are missing. Besides Toyota, mentioned above, this year's car advertisers include BMW, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and Nissan. Carmakers are all rich, but compared with brands in other fields their goal is always clear: to sell new models.

BMW ran two ads at the 2011 Super Bowl. It is back this year largely to promote its all-electric i3. The first car in BMW's i series, it has just been shown at the 2015 North American International Auto Show and is already on sale in the U.S., starting at US$43,350.

Nissan has not advertised at the Super Bowl since 1997. Officially, the ad is part of its "Big Moments" strategy, though the main aim is of course to promote its 2015 Nissan Murano crossover and several other key models.

Back in 2012, Lexus drew attention with a "beast"-themed ad for its mid-size 2013 GS. Three years later, Lexus returns to the Super Bowl in 2015 to promote its new compact SUV, the NX series.

Mercedes-Benz has not yet said why it is going to the Super Bowl or which new model it will push.

Beyond the business case, such high prices also force advertisers to take the ads themselves seriously. Most creative teams start planning half a year ahead and treat the Super Bowl as seriously as the Cannes Lions festival. Apple's 1984, made for the launch of the Macintosh that year, made many people remember Apple as an extraordinary company. That public goodwill later helped, to some degree, to build Apple into what it became.

On average, more than 40 brands stand behind the Super Bowl each year. These advertisers spend lavishly to win slots, yet they are always on the passive side. The biggest winner is NBC, which broadcasts the game. In 2014, the Super Bowl broadcaster earned about US$250 million over 20 hours of coverage, against annual revenue of about US$23 billion. At the prices NBC has set for this year's Super Bowl ads, a 30-second spot sells for about US$4.5 million.

Of course, not everyone is buying.

A few days ago, the tech site The Verge announced on its own site that it too would run a Super Bowl ad. The ad did air during the Super Bowl, but only on television in Helena, Montana, a town of about 30,000 people. It was an attention-grabbing joke dripping with contempt for the Super Bowl.

The other case is YouTube, which has decided to stage its own halftime show with its own stars during the Super Bowl, with ads in between. Showing up on YouTube during the Super Bowl's halftime break, it is plainly going after the Super Bowl's business.

These are not two isolated events. They send one clear message: the internet has grown bold enough to challenge television, a channel that is declining but still dominant.

The 2015 Super Bowl has not even started, and the "young upstarts" who have long resented it have already taken the field.

Cover image: crazywebsite