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Marcus Johnson (00:00):

Ever seen an ad that just fits perfectly? That's Seedtag. Their neurocontextual technology combines AI and neuroscience principles to place brands exactly where they belong. It's privacy-first advertising that taps into the user's interests, emotions, and intentions, making every interaction feel natural and relevant, Seedtag, where context becomes intelligence.

(00:27):

Welcome, everyone, to In the Game, an EMARKETER sports marketing podcast made possible by Seedtag. This is a conversation today about Superbowl 60, where the Sam Darnold-led Seattle Seahawks beat the newly resurgent New England Patriots. Hello, folks. I'm Marcus. And today, I'm alongside, based in Maine. So not really, but virtually. VP of content, Paul Verna.

Paul Verna (01:04):

Hey, thanks for having me. And I guess right now, we could say I'm based in Patriots Nation because that's what all of New England is.

Marcus Johnson (01:13):

Unfortunately, yeah.

Paul Verna (01:14):

People feeling glum around here.

Marcus Johnson (01:16):

I know. Well, you had your run. Okay.

Paul Verna (01:19):

We did.

Marcus Johnson (01:20):

[inaudible 00:01:19]. Living in Westchester, a little further south, senior digital advertising analyst, Ross Benes.

Ross Benes (01:25):

Hey, Marcus.

Marcus Johnson (01:26):

Hello, fella. Also, probably feeling glum because, as you can see, for viewers, he's Nebraska fan.

Ross Benes (01:33):

We got nothing to be glum about right now. What are you talking about?

Marcus Johnson (01:35):

Oh, all right. Never mind. Never mind. We start with the pregame show.

(01:44):

This is where we discuss why this game matters, this game being the Super Bowl, and the stories surrounding the event. So what happened? Well, if you didn't watch or if you did, quick recap, the Seattle Seahawks pulled away slowly, but surely from the struggling New England Patriots in the 29 to 13 win for the Seahawks. Even though New England quarterback Drake Maye, who finished second in regular season MVP voting, had the higher pass rating, QB pass rating, than Sam Darnold in ... It was a three turnovers forced by a historic defensive performance from Seattle that helped Sam Darnold, the QB of the Seahawks, and kicker Jason Myers, who hit a Super Bowl record five field goals, helped them crawl towards 29 points, more than enough against just 13 for New England.

(02:33):

But Ross, I'll start with you. Any stories surrounding this game that jumped out to you?

Ross Benes (02:38):

What's interesting is the game itself wasn't really any good. It wasn't ever close.

Marcus Johnson (02:44):

Yeah.

Ross Benes (02:45):

It felt like a much bigger deficit than what we actually ended up getting. It felt like it was a 30-point game. But for people watching, a lot of them, it doesn't matter. They're going to watch a Super Bowl either way. So the Super Bowl's still this huge cultural event, even if you don't get a fantastic Super Bowl, you're still going to have over a hundred million people in the US watching it and talking about it for the next week.

Marcus Johnson (03:09):

Yeah. Yes. New England didn't score to the fourth quarter. And it did feel like a game that if you told me the score was 13-10, I'd have believed you. But somehow it was a kind of avalanche of points late to give it this 29-13 score. It was interesting-

Ross Benes (03:25):

I mean, New England, I think, had less than a hundred yards of offense before the fourth quarter.

Marcus Johnson (03:29):

Yes, they did. I think Sam ... Oh, sorry. Drake Maye had 50 yards passing and negative 30 just by getting sacked. So it wasn't a great start. But Paul, these teams, what's interesting to me as well, they shouldn't have been in the Super Bowl. I don't say that to be mean, but the betting market said the Seahawks were a 60 to one to win at the start of the year, the Patriots 80 to one.

Paul Verna (03:57):

You characterized it as a historic defensive performance by the Seahawks, which it was. That makes for a boring game in some ways.

Marcus Johnson (04:05):

Yes.

Paul Verna (04:06):

I mean, the fact that it looked like it ... For a while, it was looking like either it was going to be a game with no touchdowns or a game that would have been the first and only shutout in a Super Bowl. And then things definitely got more interesting beginning late in the third quarter and the fourth quarter, but it felt like it never really got off the ground, at least as a spectacle, as entertainment.

Marcus Johnson (04:34):

One of the other storylines I thought was fascinating was Sam Darnold was, in fact, a quarterback that could play well in the playoffs and win a Super Bowl. And so the story there is the Vikings dropped him last year in favor of a younger prospect, J.J. McCarthy. And then Darnold went on, guys, to become the first starting QB in NFL history to win the Super Bowl after playing with over five teams. So he's bounced around a ton. Most of the time, if a QB bounces around a lot, they don't win. Or someone like ... Who made it to the ... Oh, Carson Wentz, you make it to the Super Bowl, would get injured and then Nick Foles takes over as a backup and wins Super Bowl for the Eagles. Darnold was the first starting quarterback to bounce from team to team to team to team, and then win it all. So I thought that was amazing.

Paul Verna (05:26):

He went from journeyman to hero's Journey.

Marcus Johnson (05:28):

Yeah. I mean, the film has to come out soon. It's a heck of a story. And so especially-

Ross Benes (05:35):

And that film starts with him getting drafted by the Jets.

Marcus Johnson (05:37):

Yes. Yeah. Third overall behind ...

Paul Verna (05:39):

[inaudible 00:05:40].

Marcus Johnson (05:41):

... Baker Mayfield and Saquon Barkley. So big expectations, they thought it was a bust because he didn't do well for the Jets and then ended up on the Panthers, San Francisco, Minnesota, and then there was the Super Bowl. The other one, I thought this finally felt like the refurbished Patriots team. It feels like for a long time, the kind of ghost of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick was always around, but Jason Gay of the Wall Street Journal writing New Englanders fumigated the final traces of the Belichick-Brady Dynasty, replacing them with a perky coach, Mike Vrabel, and the fresh quarterback phenom, Drake Maye. So it did feel like a new version of the Patriots.

(06:17):

Anyway, there's some of the storylines heading into the game, but let's now start the real show by introducing the first half.

(06:30):

We start the show, the first half of the game of the show, with the Super Bowl of our own, Paul versus Ross. The goal here is to give me the three biggest takeaways from the Super Bowl. This is how it's scored. I'm going to basically assign points based on how I feel. But the scoring that I've invented about an hour ago, bad answers get you no points. You basically have to punt. Good answers will get you three. That's a field goal. And great answers are worth a whole touchdown and an extra point because touchdown is six. So seven total if you get great answers. Three drives or three answers. Each will go back and forth.

(07:09):

Paul, what was one of the biggest takeaways for you from the Super Bowl?

Paul Verna (07:13):

As I was watching it, I felt like I was settling for meh to quote the tagline in the star-studded YouTube TV ad. The game was kind of meh. The commercials were kind of meh for me. It was interesting that it was one of the least "offensive" Super Bowls because it also felt like brands and individuals were trying very, very hard not to offend, which I can totally understand given the climate we're in.

Marcus Johnson (07:40):

Yeah.

Paul Verna (07:40):

So that's my first takeaway.

Marcus Johnson (07:42):

All right. I think I'm going to give that ... I'll give it three. And also, I think part of it was the personalities in the game. Sam Darnold, he's incredibly down to earth, grounded, and non-flamboyant kind of a player. And when he won, you were expecting a take that Minnesota, like I showed you, and he was thanking his teammates.

Paul Verna (08:04):

He was so nonchalant. Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (08:05):

Yeah. So I think that was part of it. And Drake Maye as well.

Ross Benes (08:08):

You need Baker Mayfield in the game.

Paul Verna (08:09):

Yeah, yeah.

Marcus Johnson (08:10):

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Ross Benes (08:11):

He would be talking.

Marcus Johnson (08:13):

Yeah. So I think that's a bit a part of it as well. I watched the game and then I think you're right. Afterwards, I was like, "Was that the Super Bowl or just a regular season game?" All right. Three points for Paul out the gate.

Paul Verna (08:23):

I'll take the field goal. I mean, I might win with that.

Marcus Johnson (08:26):

You could, yes.

Ross Benes (08:27):

[inaudible 00:08:27]. It works for the Seahawks.

Marcus Johnson (08:28):

Yeah, in the five he's scored. Ross, what have you got?

Ross Benes (08:33):

Well, just too many AI ads. I saw a stat, I think it was from iSpot about a fourth of all the Super Bowl ads were promoting some sort of AI product. And that's just a lot for any category, whether it's automotive, or beer, or travel. If you have a fourth of the inventory related to pushing a particular category, especially an emergent one, it just feels like a lot. It feels like the dotcom Super Bowl of the year 2000.

Marcus Johnson (09:03):

Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't sure what to make of this number because ... So it's 15 of the 66 and they said featured AI. So that meant it could be selling AI to consumers or used the technology to make the ad. But I wasn't sure whether ... I guess this is a high number. Maybe I expected it to be higher given all the hype around AI in the last year or two.

Ross Benes (09:24):

Well, there's always a category that is spending like drunken sailors. You had crypto not long before that. Betting apps once gambling was legalized. So it seems like AI is that category right now that's like they have a lot of money for marketing and they're going to let the nation know it.

Marcus Johnson (09:43):

Yeah. Yeah. Friend of the show, former colleague, Deborah Aho Williamson, founder and chief analyst at Sonata Insights saying," The commercials are similar to how AI was portrayed last year, practical use cases for AI or humanizing AI in people's daily lives." So people were maybe a bit more familiar with that type of ad given that we saw some of it last year. And I thought, yeah, this piece as well from Forbes, Vineet Mehra, CEO at the fintech company, Chime, was quoted in the piece. And he was talking a bit about AI and how it's being used at the Super Bowl.

(10:17):

So he said, "For the last few years, AI's role in the Super Bowl ads has been framed mainly around production, faster edits, cheaper variations, more efficient asset creation. What we're heading into now is a moment where AI starts acting as a copilot for modern marketing, not just helping making the ad, but helping run everything that happens once the ad is live. This includes adapting messaging in real time, monitoring cultural signals, and orchestrating experiences across channels. The Super Bowl is the ultimate stress test for this shift. It's live, it's loud, and it moves fast." Touchdown, seven points.

Ross Benes (10:48):

All right.

Marcus Johnson (10:49):

All right, Paul, back over to you. Your drive, what you got for a second takeaway.

Paul Verna (10:54):

Well, this one may be controversial, but it's not supposed to be. I was a big fan of the Bad Bunny halftime show. I thought it was a great musical performance, and it also had a lot of very subtle messaging that wasn't strident. It was just giving a little bit of a history lesson about Puerto Rico and presenting this Pan-American vision of what America is. So I think after the Grammys and how Bad Bunny just came right out and said the part out loud that a lot of people were thinking, I think here, it was just more artful, but also just very effective and I really enjoyed it.

Marcus Johnson (11:45):

I think that's touchdown. Seven points. Bad Bunny. Ross, what do you got?

Ross Benes (11:51):

I'm also going to put the halftime show as this point here. And my point is that programmatic advertising will never work for a huge event like the Super Bowl.

Marcus Johnson (12:03):

Or never, you said.

Ross Benes (12:04):

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (12:04):

Okay.

Ross Benes (12:07):

You might have some sort of automation, but not like you see online. And what I'm using as my case study here is ... So I watched the Bad Bunny halftime show because I watched the whole Super Bowl. Later that night, I watched the Turning Point USA All-American Show to check out what 50 some year-old kid rock is up to. And the ad experience is just so different. And, of course, that's the case if you're watching linear TV sports versus a YouTube video, but it's really jarring to go from these are the most expensive ads. They're placed in a way that's very thoughtful.

(12:44):

There's spacing between competitors. There's not repetition too much of a particular brand. The way that everyone sees the same ad at once is actually beneficial for the Super Bowl. It's why we're talking about particular ads. You watch the All-American Halftime Show on YouTube, and I just got the same ad over and over again, and it was actually for a political group opposed to Turning Point USA trying to unseat a Republican congressman in my district. So that's funny on how ad targeting works, that I see ads that are complete opposite of the programming, but it was just like, "Wow," watching YouTube, that ad experience is just so much worse than it was for this huge football game.

(13:31):

And the ads were that way, they were personalized. I can't have word of mouth about this attack ad unless if I talk to someone who lives in my congressional district and has my same interests. So there's no one who I know probably has even seen that ad. So there's a lot to be said of personalization and its uses, but it doesn't translate to something like the Super Bowl. You want the opposite. You want everyone seeing the same ad to build that water cooler effect.

Marcus Johnson (13:58):

Do you think that there's a certain size event where that changeover is more acceptable? If it was a 20 million people tuning into the Grammys, like 30 million into the NBA Finals, at what point do you think it becomes less effective?

Ross Benes (14:17):

Gosh, that's a great question. How did ... I feel like-

Marcus Johnson (14:22):

It might just be the Super Bowl. I feel like it's the only thing people really talk about to this effect.

Ross Benes (14:25):

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (14:27):

I mean, obviously, it's in a category by itself in terms of audience.

Ross Benes (14:30):

I think if you had that type of experience, though, even for a NFC championship game, it would be very off-putting if you had the YouTube experience rather than the linear TV experience. But if it was a weekly college basketball game that only gets 800,000 viewers, then it's probably fine. I don't know where the cutoff is, though. That's an interesting thing to think about.

Paul Verna (14:52):

Yeah, I think it's hard to put a number on it, but I would say that anything that people are talking about and focusing on before the event, like all of the award shows, the Grammys, the Oscars, March Madness, the Olympics, and obviously, the Super Bowl, other big NFL and college football games. So I think when you have interest that spans just outside of your town or your district, then I think Ross's point about the common experience is a great one. Actually, it's a little preview for my next drive, so I'll save it, but-

Marcus Johnson (15:34):

Oh. It's time. It's currently 14 ... Sorry, Ross?

Ross Benes (15:38):

I'll just say we're teeing it up for Paul.

Marcus Johnson (15:40):

Absolutely. 14-10 to Ross. Plenty of time to come back there. Paul, what you got?

Paul Verna (15:45):

So I love having these cultural moments and they are few and far between. And the Super Bowl ... In all transparency, I'm not a huge NFL fan, but I love this event because of how it's like the last thing we have or one of the last things that really brings people together. So you see that in the ads, you see that in the stories around the game, you see that in the halftime show. So the whole thing, it's just so much fun at a time when so much of our media consumption and news consumption is totally fragmented, and it's hard to get people from different walks of life to coalesce around anything. So I treasure these things more and more as our society becomes more fragmented. And as I get older and have had the experience of seeing TV go from everything being appointment viewing to everything being atomized.

Marcus Johnson (16:50):

Yeah. It's odd because we sit in our entertainment silos for the entire year and then we'll decide, "Let's get together," and just for one day, that's plenty. We don't need any more than that. So how would you sum that up in a sentence? People coming together around this cultural moment still?

Paul Verna (17:08):

Yeah. There's great value and now scarcity in these kinds of moments. And just one little postscript. So it used to be that big season finales for big shows like Friends and Mash and all those great shows would also garner this focused attention. That doesn't happen anymore because people are watching the finale of Stranger Things or Breaking Bad all at different times. There's no single moment. I mean, some shows are streamed in a way that tries to encourage that, but for the most part, it's like you watch it when you watch it. So the live in the moment thing is something that is pretty unique to sports now. So again, all the more reason to harness it and enjoy it before something breaks it up.

Marcus Johnson (18:04):

Yeah. Touchdown. 17-14. Ross, you could tie it with a field goal and then I'll ask something else to get some takes for a time breaker.

Ross Benes (18:15):

I might whiff, too.

Marcus Johnson (18:16):

But you might ... That's true. Or the touchdown will seal it. What have you got?

Ross Benes (18:20):

So I've appreciated when there's been an alt cast that's incorporated like a children's entertainment. So two years ago, when CBS had the Super Bowl, there was an alt cast on Nickelodeon that had all the animations, and Slime, and SpongeBob was featured and it made it more palatable for the kids to sit there so they bother you less and you can actually watch more of the game.

Marcus Johnson (18:43):

Yeah.

Ross Benes (18:44):

And Disney+ has done this, not for the Super Bowl because Disney hasn't had the Super Bowl recently. They're going to have it next year, but they've done various events, NFL games, NBA games, or they'll have Toy Story animations or other characters from their IP included. And it works to a degree to get your kid to sit down. So NBC doesn't have as many children's franchises as Disney certainly, and not even as many as Nickelodeon, but I would have loved a Minions cast for this game.

Marcus Johnson (19:19):

This is really interesting because what do kids do when they get the Super Bowls on? The whole country is watching the Super Bowl, not the whole country, but a lot of people. Are the kids just running around? Is there this huge opportunity?

Ross Benes (19:31):

And then they try to get you to put it on Gabby's Dollhouse and to stop watching it. That's what they do.

Marcus Johnson (19:37):

So maybe there's this huge opportunity here.

Paul Verna (19:40):

Well, it's funny, when my kids were younger, it was during the heyday of the Patriots playing in every Super Bowl and winning many of them. And I think one of those games went to overtime and local kids, including my kids, they were up to 11:30 at night. So the next day at school, I think they even let people start late or it was this whole thing about the kids and their involvement, but that was because it was the local team. If it's not the local team and your kids are watching more for the cultural aspect, then, yeah, obviously, you need to do something to keep them entertained.

Marcus Johnson (20:21):

The kid audience, I like this. A Super Bowl alt cast for kids. I'm going to say three points. Three points, field goal for Ross, which ties us up [inaudible 00:20:38]-

Paul Verna (20:38):

Overtime. Overtime.

Marcus Johnson (20:39):

... at 17. Of course, we're going to overtime. The one I had was that celebs in ads are well and truly here to stay. And so as folks watching can see on the screen, this chart showing, over the last six years, celebrities have been featured in around 70% of Super Bowl ads. This is data from iSpot. So about 70% of Super Bowl ads have a celebrity over the last six years. 10 years ago, it was closer to 40%, so a big uptick. Multi-celebrity spots have also climbed from 17 to 51 in the last 10 years.

(21:17):

Paul, start with you. What's your take here?

Paul Verna (21:21):

I was wondering when I saw the ad with Scarlett Johansson and John Tam, Jon Hamm.

Marcus Johnson (21:31):

Head of marketing?

Paul Verna (21:32):

John Tam, our new CMO, you have been confused with a very famous actor, consider it a compliment. So I was wondering, and I said to my wife, "Does Scar Jo really need the money?" And ... She said that. And then I said, "What about Jon Hamm?" And she's like, "Well, Jon Hamm will do anything." So, yeah, I think we're in a new normal where it's not even about the money. And it used to be if a musician sold their song for an advertisement, it was considered selling out and it was never done. And now it's par for the course. It's the same with celebrities and ads. It's going to happen.

Marcus Johnson (22:16):

Ross, what do you got?

Ross Benes (22:17):

The price of Super Bowl ads continues to skyrocket much faster than inflation. So when a company decides to purchase that inventory, they have to go big or go home. So I think that's why you're going to see more celebrities. If they're going to pay more for the inventory, they're going to be willing to pay more for the creative. And it doesn't seem to be a limit on how many celebrities they can jam into an ad.

Marcus Johnson (22:40):

Yeah.

Ross Benes (22:41):

They really want to have the biggest impact, even if it's going to blow up their budget, because a Super Bowl ad is a bigger venture and riskier than it used to be. And if you have more celebrities, you have a more chance that it could take off.

Marcus Johnson (22:53):

Yeah. Yeah. Speaking about more chance to take off, Lauren Johnson of Adweek making this similar point saying, "Celebs talk about their ads on social media, reaching people beyond the confines of Super Bowl airtime." But she was saying, consider whether the celebrity presence serves the strategy or becomes the strategy, saying star power should amplify a strong idea, not substitute one. Good examples being Gordon Ramsay being on an ad for kitchenware company. Some bad examples, Meta's ad for Ray-Ban smart glasses that starred Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pratt was last year, neither typically associated with technology or glasses or Coinbase's karaoke style sing along this year to the Backstreet Boys. It was one ex-user saying, "I was vibing, doing Backstreet Boys karaoke and then crypto. How dare you?"

(23:40):

So, yeah, make sure it fits. But Paul, to your point, Jamie Goldman, who's one of our senior directors of content, was saying, basically as celebrities fill Super Bowl ads, ads themselves have shifted from touching to funny. You were talking about the comedic part of this with humorous spots now accounting for 71% of Super Bowl ads up from 62% in 2016 according to iSpot. Heartfelt comments, sorry, content, heartfelt content went from 38% to 20% in the last seven years. Why funny lends itself better to quotable, memeable moments, the spread faster on social extending reach beyond broadcast.

(24:17):

All right. After overtime, the winner is ... Ross is today's winner of the Super Bowl. Congratulations to him. Some really good points. Too many AI ads, programmatic won't ever work for the Super Bowl, and Super Bowl alt cast for kids. Could be good. Paul was saying, kind of felt a bit mad Bad Bunny's halftime performance and then mass audiences watching together. Close contest, gents, but Ross is today's Super Bowl winner.

Paul Verna (24:43):

Well deserved.

Marcus Johnson (24:45):

Congratulations.

Ross Benes (24:45):

That was my Mahomes moment.

Marcus Johnson (24:48):

Time now for the second half.

(24:54):

All right. Today, in the second half, we're looking at the top three biggest winners from the Super Bowl. So this could be an advertiser. It could be an ad. It could be a cultural moment. It could be a network, a streamer, really anything. So we're going to come up with a top three list together. Ross, I'll start with you. What you got?

Ross Benes (25:12):

Well, you guys mentioned him earlier. I'm going with Ricky Martin. He's put back into the spotlight. People hadn't thought about him for years. And man, he looked great. I mean, what a beautiful man. He's 54 years old and he's more handsome than ever. He's living la vida loca. I'm going with Ricky.

Marcus Johnson (25:29):

Ricky Martin. I didn't see that coming, but well played. It was right there. Paul, what do you got?

Paul Verna (25:37):

I'm going with Kenneth Walker as MVP. Amazing story. Knowing that it was the first time his dad had seen him in an NFL game was amazing. Imagine that.

Marcus Johnson (25:50):

That was the first time?

Paul Verna (25:52):

First time. Yep.

Marcus Johnson (25:53):

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, super MVP [inaudible 00:25:57].

Paul Verna (25:56):

So he wins on many levels.

Marcus Johnson (25:58):

Yeah. He rushed for twice as many yards as the entire New England Patriot team.

Paul Verna (26:03):

Yeah.

Marcus Johnson (26:04):

And I think he had the most rushing yards since Terrell Davis, which I don't know when that Super Bowl was, but he's been retired for about 30 years, so a long time ago.

Ross Benes (26:14):

In 2021, Nebraska shut down Kenneth Walker. We played for Michigan State. He only had 60 yards on, I think, 21 carries, not a first down in the second half. And Nebraska still lost that game somehow.

Marcus Johnson (26:25):

Wow. No, Nebraska.

Ross Benes (26:26):

So that's what I thought when I saw him.

Paul Verna (26:28):

Him again.

Marcus Johnson (26:32):

So, yeah, I'm thinking ... I mean, Sam Darnold's obvious choice for me. I'm such a Sam Darnold fan now, but I'll go with the winners being ... I was looking at USA Today's Annual Ad Meter popularity contest, and I think some of the winners, I'll wrap them all up into the winners of the Ad Meter popularity contest. And you had Budweiser for their Clydesdale and eagle ad. Lay's, the daughter take over the family potato farm ads, and Pepsi's story using the polar bear. So they apparently did very well according to this measure.

(27:08):

So, yeah, I thought they were all really good. So they would be my winners for the Super Bowl. So that's the top three, Ricky Martin, Kenneth Walker III, and Budweiser, Lay's, and Pepsi. All right, that's short, but sweet. Second half, we move now to clutch time.

(27:31):

All right, this is where we offer takeaways to sports marketers. Game on the line, gents. What's your best takeaway? Paul, I'll start with you.

Paul Verna (27:37):

I'm going to repeat myself and cite something I said in the Reimagining Retail podcast recently, which is that marketers need to treat Super Bowl advertising the way my daughter treats a night out, where it's my college age daughter treats a night on the town, which is basically there's pregaming, there's the event itself, and then there's the after party. So way back in my day, you just advertised, and that was it. Now you have to build momentum, get conversations going, tease the ad, just do a lot of preparation for that event. Obviously, during the game, you have to hit it out of the park, or score a touchdown, or whatever metaphor you want to use. And then there's the aftermath, like getting people to talk about it, to remember it, to make the rankings of top 25 Super Bowl ads ever. All of those things really, really matter now.

Marcus Johnson (28:37):

Yeah.

Paul Verna (28:38):

So it's a life cycle.

Marcus Johnson (28:40):

I love this one. I think it's brilliant. I was reading a piece by Mark Stenberg of Adweek who completely agree saying, "In recent years, brand Super Bowl efforts have themselves transformed from a one-time 30-second spot into a sprawling multi-week marketing event, pointing to the William Shatner Raisin Bran sightings designed to spark curiosity before the reveal, designed to let gossip sites and social media fees accomplish the early amplification." And the second point here quickly, Marissa Jones, our Marissa Jones writes for our briefing, had a really good piece about sports podcast consumption on Spotify jumping after the games, saying it surges 358% sports podcast consumption after the event, following any sports event, according to Spotify. Before the game, consumption rises 172%.

(29:29):

So it's huge on average. There's this huge conversation lead up to and after she was saying that the post-event conversations are likely more effective than pre-event because they tap into the game's emotional aftermath, offering analysis that fans seek once a sports event concludes and pointing to 80%, 80% of sports audio listeners taking action after hearing an ad on a sports podcast or radio show according to a story from SiriusXM Media, GroupM, and Edison Research. So if you want to sponsor this podcast, this new sports, but then that's fine. I'm just throwing some stats at you. But I thought it was interesting and quite fitting to the idea that the conversation happens around the event.

(30:06):

Ross.

Ross Benes (30:07):

Well, that's what I was going to say from my final point is that the Super Bowl isn't a place to do cost-effective reach. Digiday every year has an article for here's what a Super Bowl ad spot could buy you. If you're paying $10 million for Super Bowl, you could buy this many TV ads, and social media ads, and search ads, and on and on. And the list is crazy. When you look at it, it's like, "Oh my gosh, you could build a giant campaign just from this one ad spot." But if you're doing the Super Bowl, you're not just looking to reach people as cheaply as possible. You're not using it like a performance marketing tool.

(30:43):

You're building a whole campaign around this one ad rather than using the ad as part of a campaign necessarily. You're trying to build a cultural conversation that you wouldn't be able to do no matter how many search ads you bought. So the use case of the Super Bowl is just much different than cost-effective reach. So when you're looking at it that way, that the tradeoff isn't quite the best way to tell that story.

Marcus Johnson (31:05):

Director Taika Waititi had this quote saying, "Advertising that has a story that unfolds like in a movie is much more powerful than an ad that has lots and lots of scenes, lots of messages bombarding you," saying what most advertisers get wrong is they try to put too much into too short a period of time and you're better off saying less and less and people feel that emotion. The Lay's Little Farmer is one of the ads. I think that's the one that he worked on from last year, where the little girl nurtures a potato from seed to harvest is pretty beautiful. So I thought that was a good take as well.

(31:41):

But that's it for clutch time. And that will do it for today. Next month, we'll be talking all about America's new and developing relationship with the F1 and what Audi and Cadillac's entrance into the competition could do for their brands and for the sport. Our production crew, Lance and Stuart, who runs a team on this one, many thanks to them. Of course, thanks to my guests. Paul.

Paul Verna (32:02):

Thank you for having me.

Marcus Johnson (32:03):

Yes, indeed. And before I go to Ross, Paul, I have to say a huge, huge thank you to Paul because this is his last episode with us. Paul has been one of a handful of people who've basically breathed life into this podcast and kept it going over the years. And so it's as much his as it is anybody. So Paul, thank you so much for everything. We miss you already.

Paul Verna (32:24):

Well, it's been a real pleasure. 19 years to the day since I joined EMARKETER. And, yes, being on the podcast has been one of the most fun parts of the job. And I give you tons of credit, Marcus, for your amazing hosting, Stu for running the team. Everybody on the production crew, you guys are all fantastic. But mostly, I want to thank all the listeners. You guys have made it possible for us to do this day in and day out. And it's been a joy getting emails from you, going to events, and have clients tell me, "Oh, yeah, we love the show. We love when you're on it." So kudos to everybody listening and kudos to you, Marcus, and the production team.

Marcus Johnson (33:14):

Oh, no, it's a team effort, and you've been a huge part of that team effort. And speaking of kudos, it sounds like you're still leaving because, according to my kudos board post for you, I said I'm still mad at you. The only way to make this right is to not leave. So I'll see you on Monday. Thanks for understanding, Marcus.

Paul Verna (33:31):

Well, Stu threatened to have me back as a guest periodically ...

Marcus Johnson (33:36):

Yes, please.

Paul Verna (33:36):

... in my post-marketer afterlife. So, yes, that'll be, I guess, the after party. So I'm there. Count me in.

Marcus Johnson (33:44):

We'll see you then. Thank you, Paul. And a huge thank you, of course, to Ross, who we get to keep for a little while.

Ross Benes (33:49):

And I was just going to also say, Paul's always been a big champion supporter of the podcast. So I thank him for that for always having the podcast back when we needed support for it.

Marcus Johnson (34:01):

Yes, indeed. Thank you, James. Thank you to everyone listening into In The Game, an EMARKETER sports marketing podcast made possible by Seedtag.