GM to sit out Super Bowl, breaking 4-year streak

General Motors will sit out the 2024 Super Bowl, breaking a four-year Big Game ad streak. A spokesperson confirmed the decision to Ad Age today, saying, “We continually evaluate our media strategies to ensure they align with our business priorities.” Football marketing news Tracking Super Bowl, NFL and college brand moves Read more here The move comes under new marketing leadership—in July, GM hired former CVS Chief Marketing Officer Norm de Greve as its senior VP and CMO, replacing Deborah Wahl, who parted ways with the automaker in March. Wahl, who had held the CMO role since 2019, was a proponent of Super Bowl advertising. She was at the helm in 2020 when the automaker returned to the game for the first time since 2017 with an ad starring LeBron James for the new electric Hummer. GM also plugged EVs with Big Game spots in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Browse Ad Age’s Super Bowl ad archive Will Ferrell starred in two of those ads: In 2021 he plugged GM’s EV ambitions in a humorous spot that used Norway, and its strong EV sales, as a foil. He came back for the 2023 game with an ad that plugged a new deal with Netflix to put GM EVs in the streamer’s programming, as shown below. The automaker has also used the game to hype EVs for Chevrolet (with a “Sopranos”-themed ad in 2022 from Commonwealth/McCann) and Cadillac (whose 2021 ad from Leo Burnett imagined an alternative ending for the “Edward Scissorhands” movie). The decision to display EVs to the massive Super Bowl audience came as automakers poured billions of dollars into EV development, with the game serving as a showcase for multiple auto brands to promote future ambitions in a market that has been historically ruled by Tesla. But the EV market has changed in the past 12 months, with consumers increasingly citing price as a barrier to entry. A recent report from S&P Global Mobility revealed that about two-thirds of S&P’s respondents said they were open to purchasing an EV—a 19-percentage point drop from 2021. While the situation might require marketing to convince consumers that EVs are still worth the investment (GM has positioned itself as a mass marketer of EVs for all income types), automakers are also watching their spending amid broader economic challenges, which include stubbornly high interest rates. GM, Ford and Stellantis are also recovering from the six-week United Auto Workers strike, which ended in late October, but not before resulting in combined losses of about $2.9 billion for the so-called Detroit 3, according to Bloomberg. Stellantis, which is a regular Super Bowl advertiser, has not commented on its plans for the 2024 game, which CBS will broadcast on Feb. 11. CBS earlier this month stated that the ad time in the game, which is running for about $7 million for a 30-second unit, has “virtually sold out.” Only two brands have publicly confirmed buys so far: Coors Light and Oreo.

GM to sit out Super Bowl, breaking 4-year streak

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