In less than four hours, 65 commercials costing an average of $5.6 million per 30-second spot aired in front of 91.5 million Super Bowl LV viewers, according to the market-research firm Kantar Group. The total spend during the 2021 game was an estimated $485 million.
So, how did the ads do?
“An uncomfortable aspect in marketing is that calculating the true return on investment is always elusive,” said Derek Rucker, a marketing professor at Northwestern University who with his colleague Tim Calkins has run the Kellogg Super Bowl Ad Review for 17 years.
But, Dr. Rucker said, there’s evidence that Super Bowl ads do generate business.
After a commercial for the startup Death Wish Coffee aired during the National Football League’s title game in 2016, sales boomed, leading the company to move into a space that was nearly triple the size of its existing facility to keep up with demand.
