When the NFL has the Kansas City Chiefs, a multicultural fanbase, and stadiums full of Swifties on its team, it’s hard for the league or its advertisers to lose.
Each year, television data and research firm EDO takes a look at the prior NFL season and delves into the football stats advertisers love most: Site visits, web searches, and other data indicating ad effectiveness. In this year’s annual NFL TV Outcomes Report, it was discovered that the NFL produced roughly 36 times more ad engagement than the primetime broadcast and cable average.
Looking at about 12,000 TV ad airings from the NFL regular season to the Super Bowl, EDO broke down sports marketing performance into categories including CPG, auto, restaurants, insurance, and health and beauty. It traced the fortunes of banking and finance brands during NFL games—where Capital One’s John Travolta Santa was 598% more effective than the category average—and explained why Beyoncé’s Verizon spot was 2,976% more engaging than the median Super Bowl celebrity.
“There is no more sure of a bet in TV advertising than the NFL,” said Kevin Krim, President & CEO of EDO. “Modern marketers can use EDO’s latest NFL report to understand how the NFL and its superstars drive consumer interest and maximize returns on premium ad inventory.”
While there’s a lot for marketers to sift through in EDO’s NFL data, here are just a few highlights to consider going into the league’s upcoming season:
1. Engagement helps the NFL run up the score
Ads that run during the NFL regular season are 8% more effective than the primetime average. By the playoffs, that grows to 52%. At the Super Bowl? 198%, or nearly triple a primetime ad.
NFL broadcasts accounted for five of the year’s 15 most ad-effective broadcasts, with Super Bowl programming and the NFC Championship on Fox, Monday Night Countdown on ESPN, the NFC Championship and the Black Friday game on Amazon Prime Video mingling among the Grammys, baseball’s Home Run Derby, NCAA basketball March Madness, college football playoffs, and the NBA Finals.
Among the brands that benefited most from those airings included Hyundai, Gillette, and the embattled beer brand Bud Light. Speaking of which…
2. The Super Bowl boosts even Bud Light
Bud Light had a rough marketing year in 2023 thanks to criticism from all sides of its handling of a social campaign featuring trans activist Dylan Mulvaney. But by the time the Super Bowl came around, audiences seemed a bit more receptive.