How Streaming Is Changing Super Bowl Advertising — for the Better

The Super Bowl creates indelible moments that the whole country experiences together.

Everyone my age remembers Joe Montana’s game-winning drive for the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XXIII in 1989. 

I can still see the late, great Prince performing at halftime in the rain in Miami in 2007. 

And I recall laughing in amazement at how good Monster.com’s ad was during the Super Bowl in 1999. “I want to claw my way up to middle management” is one of the greatest lines of ad copy ever written. It’s hilarious and haunting and gets the value prop across — unforgettably. 

The Super Bowl is changing. Patrick Mahomes has taken over for Joe Montana. Usher will be this year’s halftime act. And the ads, because of the streaming and the digitization of TV, are changing, too — for the better. 

Here are a handful of ways the Super Bowl will be different this year: 

Streaming Surges

In addition to airing on CBS, the Super Bowl will also be streamed on Paramount+, Univision, and Nickelodeon. In January, an NFL Wild Card game that was streaming exclusively on NBC’s Peacock set a record for streaming with 23 million viewers. Tens of millions of Americans are likely to stream this year’s Super Bowl; 21.8 million streamed last year’s game compared with the 600,000 who streamed the Super Bowl in 2012.  

Interactive Advertising Grows  

CTV enables some forward-thinking advertisers to take advantage of interactive ad formats, moving beyond brand building to drive business growth. In this year’s game, more brands will take advantage of interactive creative formats available on CTV, such as QR codes, to push the boundaries of what’s possible in TV advertising.   

Measurement Possibilities Expand on CTV

In the past, Super Bowl advertisements were 30-second blunt instruments. Brands could gauge reach and they could count their press clippings — but measuring the impact on a company’s bottom-line was challenging. Interactive CTV ads provide immediate engagement metrics, such as remote control engagement rate. Additionally, InnovidXP, our measurement platform, enables advertisers to measure everything from reach to outcomes (such as online sales, app downloads, and registrations) across linear and CTV. 

Who Will Win on the Field and on the Screens? 

This year’s game is shaping up to be competitive as the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers square off. I’m going with the Chiefs, but I’ll be rooting for the 49ers. 

The other competition, the one for primacy in Super Bowl advertising, also promises to be entertaining. There are lots of ad trends to watch. A number of candy brands, such as Mars M&M’s and Ferrara’s Nerds, will run spots during the game. Mmmmm, candy. Celebrity spokespeople (such as NFL Hall-of-Famer Dan Marino) will square off against company mascots (such as the E-Trade baby), a battle that research from System1 says is typically won by the mascots. 

And if you’re watching Paramount+ or another streaming option, pay careful attention to the expanded capabilities that advertisers are leveraging on CTV. That’s what the Super Bowl ad game is going to look like in the future, and we’re predicting that one of the big winners from this year’s big game will be an interactive CTV advertiser.   

Learn more about the possibilities of CTV advertising with Innovid.