Not everyone will see them, but they’ll be there. They’re regional Super Bowl advertisers.
In addition to the dozens of ads that viewers of Fox’s national Super Bowl broadcast will see on Sunday, there will be another slate of ads for brands including Google, Busch Light, Tullamore DEW Irish Whiskey, and Spruce weed killer running only in certain markets.
These regional advertisers don’t usually get the bragging rights or media coverage that come with a spot on the USA Today Ad Meter, but oftentimes, they see strong ROI for far less money than national advertisers spend, marketing execs said.
“From a consumer standpoint, no one knows the difference,” said Nick Miaritis, chief client officer at VaynerMedia, who’s worked on Super Bowl campaigns that have run regionally for brands like Planter’s and Miller Lite. “Strategically, if you’re not a big national player, it could be the singular most underrated, underpriced advertising vehicle ever created.”
Crunching the numbers
Cost savings often serve as a primary factor for opting for a regional buy over a national one. The cost of even several regional spots can be “a lot more palatable” than a national buy, which will put a brand back as much as $8 million, Elliot Rifkin, group lead, services at TV ad agency Tatari, told Marketing Brew.
Paul Coffey, senior brand manager of Tullamore DEW Irish Whiskey, which is running its first Super Bowl ad in Chicago this year, said budget factored into the decision to go the regional route. “Not everybody can afford to do the full-on national buy,” he said.
While the regional approach doesn’t always make sense for national brands aiming to reach a big audience, Rifkin said, for brands that have specific designated market areas (DMAs) they prefer to target, local buys can achieve substantial reach without spending millions. The prices for 30-second regional Super Bowl ads differ based on DMA, but can generally range from about $50,000 in some smaller cities to about $1.4 million in major markets like Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, according to Miaritis.
Target practice
Beyond cost savings, there are other merits to regional Super Bowl buys. Jessica Ettelson, brand director for the new P&G-owned weed killer Spruce, said the brand will run a Super Bowl ad in 19 southern markets where the weather is warm enough for weeding and where Spruce products are on shelves, she said.
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Duolingo took a similar approach last year, when it ran a five-second spot in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, Detroit, and Pittsburgh, areas where many of its users live. Localizing resulted in a big impact “at a fraction of the cost,” CMO Manu Orssaud told us, while also allowing for some creative liberty: The brand showed its mascot’s butt on TV without too much concern.
“It gave us the freedom to create something bold, fun, and maybe even a little cheeky,” Orssaud said in an email.
For Busch Light, which is part of the Anheuser-Busch portfolio, the choice between a national or regional buy comes down to “alignment with our passion-point marketing strategy for that year,” Krystyn Stowe, head of marketing for Busch Family and Natural Family at Anheuser-Busch, said in an email.
The brand has done both: In 2022, it targeted the 41 markets where it was most popular for an ad that revived its jingle, while in 2023, it went national with singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan. This year, Busch Light is opting for regional buys, and will air two spots, with one featuring brand partner and Nascar Cup Series driver Ross Chastain, in 11 southern markets.
Training camp
Several regional Super Bowl advertisers said they’ve seen strong results from their campaigns, but that doesn’t mean they’re not also aspiring to the national stage. For some marketers, local Super Bowl ads serve as a testing ground to eventually ladder up to a national campaign, as was the case for e.l.f. Cosmetics in 2023, when it ran a regional spot featuring actor Jennifer Coolidge. Duracell, which is running its first national Super Bowl spot this year, also ran a local campaign over a decade ago before it had the budget for a national ad, Ramon Velutini, president of North America and LATAM, said.
Coffey said the Tullamore DEW team sees this year’s local buy as an opportunity to “dip our toe in the water” of the Super Bowl. The plan is to track sales at Chicago bars and run brand lift studies to see how the ad did, with the hopes of running a national Super Bowl campaign down the line.
“This is the first step in trying to get there,” Coffey said.