The sounds of Super Bowl ads, analyzed

From visual effects to A-list celebrities, there’s a lot to pay attention to in the elaborate productions that are Super Bowl ads.

So it’s easy for elements like music and voice-overs to be overshadowed. Still, for ads that can cost up to $7 million for just 30 seconds of airtime, it’s important to get every detail right.

Marketing Brew asked sonic branding agency amp to analyze the majority of ads that ran in this year’s game to get a sense of how brands made use of audio. We’ve highlighted some of their findings below.

Sad songs are so 2021

Last year’s Super Bowl was more of a muted affair, and that tone was reflected in some of the ads.

For instance, Bass Pro Shops and its subsidiary Cabela’s channeled “these trying times” vibes in an ad, using a soft, instrumental track. Similarly, Anheuser-Busch ran a corporate commercial featuring a piano track, along with the phrase “when we’re back,” a sign of pre-widespread vaccination.

“Overall, the general tonality of everything that we’ve seen, the pop tracks, everything else, was a lot more happy and forward-looking and energizing versus last year, where there was a balance of some sad moods, more mellow moods,” Vijay Iyer, CEO of amp sound branding North America, told Marketing Brew.

This year, 24% of Super Bowl ads used music that amp classified as primarily “cinematic”—which includes elements like electronic and orchestral tracks—per its analysis. In other words, the type of music typically associated with movie trailers, according to Bjorn Thorleifsson, amp’s head of strategy and research. The music in the Hellmann’s ad, starring Pete Davidson, was categorized by amp as “cinematic,” for example.

The rest was a mix—amp said 13% used “pop” music, but other genres, including “rock” and “hip-hop,” got some airtime. And two ads used no music at all (looking at you, Carvana and Greenlight).

Name that brand—or not

Some Super Bowl ads flew by without a single audible mention of the brand’s name: 40%, to be exact. And only 20% included a spoken tagline, according to amp’s research.

The lack of name-dropping can be a good move in some cases, according to Thorleifsson. For instance, he said amp sometimes recommends that clients with a “very global” presence, like Mastercard, avoid saying their name out loud in ads because it’s pronounced differently in different regions.

Audible use of a brand name associated with a sonic logo or sound can often lead to higher recall, Iyer said, so amp sometimes recommends dropping it into the ad. That’s especially true for Super Bowl ads, Thorleifsson explained, since there’s a good chance viewers will be looking elsewhere, engaged in a conversation, or refilling their drinks in the kitchen.

“If you stand up and stop watching the TV, but you still hear [an ad], it’s still kind of in your subconscious, but you have no clue what that advertisement was about because there was no way of knowing the brand,” Thorleifsson said. “Then you turn around, and then, there’s the next ad.”

To license or not to license

Brands were fairly evenly split between using licensed or custom music in their Super Bowl spots, according to amp: 46% used custom tracks, 40% licensed songs, 10% did both, and 4% did neither.

This isn’t a decision to be taken lightly, according to Iyer and Thorleifsson, given the complexity of music licensing deals—nevermind the potential price tag. Before shelling out the money to license a song, marketers have to consider whether or not the song “is an integral part of the storytelling,” Thorleifsson said.

Take General Motors’ Austin Powers-themed ad, for example. The song GM used sporadically throughout “is essentially part of the narrative of the Austin Powers universe,” said Iyer, who worked at GM for three years before he joined amp, so it made sense to pay for it.

Many music licensing deals for ads expire after six months or a year, Iyer told us. When the deal expires, the brand has to take its ad offline.