Football fans are paying record prices for tickets to the big game between Seattle and New England on February 1, but they're not the only ones ready to invest a lot of cash -- and effort -- in making Super Bowl Sunday a perfect event.
Marketers are also driving to score big points with fans when it comes time for the kickoff in Glendale, Arizona, this year. Not surprisingly, they're doing it in fresh, technology-driven ways.
Social and mobile are now very much part of the context: Modern-day Super Bowl advertising has become a multi-platform event. Let's look at what we can expect from the smartest brands, in terms of strategy, this time around. Below, we've rounded up this year's five defining trends in Super Bowl marketing.
1. Get ready for new mobile-consumption marketing records (and a bigger consumer spend)
Mobile visitors are becoming even more valuable. Think of it this way: larger smartphone screen sizes mean more people feel more comfortable logging longer view-times on their devices. Also, the newest tech is better enabling mobile wallets. The combination means that brands stand to see improved ROIs for each mobile visit. Recent metrics from the Adobe Digital Index illustrates that potential.
More than 1/3 of online video viewing of special sporting events in 2014 occurred on mobile devices.
Nearly 50% of visits to Super Bowl advertisers' websites on February 1 will come from mobile devices.
35% of consumers said their mobile phones let them pay for goods and services via digital-wallet technology, and 47% have actually used their device to make a digital-wallet payment.
Mobile accounted for 16% of all online sales during the two-month holiday shopping period -- reaching 28% and 29% of online sales on Black Friday and Thanksgiving. Notably, the majority of mobile buying was done via iOS devices; nearly half of all mobile sales came from customers using iPads.
2. Alternative viewing platforms will drive new ad opportunities
Digital-video consumption brings sports-advertising opportunities to the masses via alternative viewing choices such as over-the-top (OTT) platforms -- that is, content provided via the Internet and not from a dedicated service -- and gaming consoles. Consider the following Adobe Digital Index stats.
For TV Everywhere content, OTT devices such as Xbox and Apple TV are replacing desktops in the living room. More than a 10% share of viewing was from OTT devices, last year. Desktop share declined in Q3 2014.
Android devices and gaming consoles have the most engaged consumers when it comes to TV Everywhere content. Users of both devices share more than eight video starts per month.
3. Real-time digital video empowers a newly international viewership
Super Bowl viewership is set to become more international than ever as countries other than the U.S. have greater access to viewing the game in real time via digital video. And that's a phenomenon not just confined to one sport. The NBA is the most international in terms of geo-tagged social buzz, with 39% coming from outside the United States. The MLB holds second place, with 24%, and the NFL is third, with 21%. Point is, brands can increase global exposure by leaning into digital-video platforms that show these sports.
4. Social media will be a key marketing strategy (and it's about to get even more complex)
According to Adobe Digital Index data, the NFL is the #1 social sport in the U.S., with more mentions prior to the season than any other pro league. And, during the NFL season, 10 brands among NFL sponsors had nearly 500,000 mentions featuring their name and the NFL in the same post.
That being said, social will remain a key digital-marketing strategy, this year, and it will become even more complex. With Facebook algorithm changes, marketers will become less dependent on the image and more dependent on the video or link post. The ADI breaks out even more details about the transformations underway in the chart above.
5. Brands will get more bang for their marketing buck in the digital space
The takeaway is that marketers are preparing their A-game, and the field awaits the best competition that money -- and creativity -- can supply.