Brands are still finalizing their ad strategies for Super Bowl 2023 but Twitter, which historically has been at the center of real-time conversations during the Big Game, is not in everyone’s lineup, according to ad leaders. In fact, Twitter is having trouble convincing advertisers to buy ads for the game.

“For Super Bowl, we’ll have no paid activity on Twitter,” said one creative advertising executive who is running the playbook for a marquee brand with a Super Bowl commercial. Typically, this brand would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on Super Bowl with Twitter, but not this year, even as Twitter’s ad sales team dangles half-price ads. 

Since the World Cup in December, Twitter has offered to match advertisers’ ad spend, up to $250,000, according to advertising leaders, meaning the brands would get double the views. The ad discount is a sign of the struggles that Twitter has been having since Elon Musk bought the company in October.

Twitter declined requests to comment. 

“We’re not expecting a ton of advertisers to go back to Twitter,” said another ad exec, even with the discounts. That appears to be the mood among executives at major media holding companies, independent ad agencies and boutique digital firms, who often are the gatekeepers of brands’ ad dollars.

Advertisers are hesitant about Twitter at a time when they would typically be preparing to use the platform to engage with consumers—and other brands—on Super Bowl Sunday. Brands will still be on Twitter, but many of the strategists behind the campaigns said they are looking at other platforms too, including TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat and YouTube. Brands don’t necessarily see a replacement yet for Twitter’s unique energy around Super Bowl discussions, but they are placing bets on other sites.

Game time decisions

Super Bowl advertisers have already been teasing their spots ahead of the Feb. 12 game. So far, Doritos, Heineken, Molson Coors, Crown Royal, PopCorners, E-Trade, Pringles, Pepsi and many more have announced plans to air in-game ads. Some brands are already incorporating Twitter into their rollouts: Doritos garnered 25 million views on Twitter with a promotion that asked people to go to TikTok to enter a dance contest to star alongside rapper Jack Harlow in the Super Bowl spot. PepsiCo's Frito-Lay, which markets Doritos, declined to comment for this story. PopCorners, another Frito-Lay brand, began teasing its ad in December with tweets featuring Bryan Cranston dressed as his iconic “Breaking Bad” character Walter White.

Some advertisers told Ad Age that they will post to Twitter during the game, looking for free reach to consumers, but they won’t buy ads. Brands would normally put money into Twitter ads, whether they have a Super Bowl commercial or not, to boost their visibility during the game. Brands with regional ads, or no TV commercials at all, use Twitter to grab a share of attention.

Savvy brands have always used Twitter to post organically, without any spend behind their messages, to conquest the commercial time for free. Perhaps most famously, Oreo’s 2013 “dunk in the dark” tweet has gained almost mythical appreciation among advertisers. The brand essentially stole the attention of Super Bowl viewers even though it didn’t buy a TV commercial, simply by tweeting during the infamous blackout in the middle of the game. Meanwhile, Mondelēz, which owns Oreo, was one of the top Twitter advertisers to issue a pause on paid ads on the platform in November.

“Twitter is just the most real-time and easiest place for consumers to post,” said a third creative agency executive, who represents at least two major brands with Super Bowl ads this year. “It's where brands go to understand what consumers are saying.”

This creative exec said that at least one of the agency’s brands would buy Twitter ads during the Super Bowl, and that others would still post organically.

Since November, after Musk took over Twitter, there has been contention between the service and advertisers. Ad spending on Twitter decreased 46% year over year in November, Ad Age reported last week, according to Standard Media Index, which tracks invoices from top media holding companies and independent ad agencies. The bottom fell out of Twitter for multiple reasons, including Musk’s looser moderation policies, which guided decisions such as reinstating former President Donald Trump’s account. Politics aside, Musk also laid off more than half of Twitter’s 7,000-person staff, including respected advertising leaders. 

Advertisers have complained about ads and services, and that there are fewer people to report issues to within Twitter. Meanwhile, Twitter has built its ad business on big brands, the type that look for the most reach in the safest places. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has more than 10 million advertisers, while there are only thousands of Twitter advertisers.

And amid an economic downturn, which is pressuring advertisers to cut spending, Twitter has become an easy place to save.

Stretched thin

Advertisers are seeing strains within Twitter’s ad sales team, too, with sloppy service, according to an exec at a digital media buying agency, which handles dozens of accounts, including those of top digital streaming companies. The agency exec said that Twitter has been making mistakes in servicing clients.

In one case, a Twitter staffer sent an email to a brand, but the email seemed to be for a rival, and it included sensitive information about that competitor’s media strategy on Twitter, the ad exec said. Also, Twitter’s staffing issues affected the delivery of ads around tentpole events, the exec said. Twitter had trouble launching a recent campaign, flubbing the mechanics of ad delivery during a high-demand time, the exec said, and it forced a brand to cut half of its flight of ads. So Twitter was leaving money on the table, the exec said, which does not bode well for Super Bowl, when top advertisers expect to have pristine service.

A promoted trend on Twitter costs $700,000 during Super Bowl, and requires close coordination with Twitter, the exec said. Trend takeovers, which are prominent positions in the What's Happening section on Twitter, typically cost around $100,000 a day, according to the ad exec.

“A lot of this business is relationship-based,” the exec said. “If you can’t get the basics right, and if it’s going to be a pain in the ass, advertisers will just say screw this.”

Advertisers need Meta, Google and Amazon—they don’t feel the same about Twitter, this exec said. For the Super Bowl, some major brands planned to dip into Twitter through the self-serve ad platform, bidding on ad inventory, but they did not feel confident about working directly with Twitter’s untested ad sales reps, the exec said.

Albert Thompson, managing director of digital innovation at agency Walton Isaacson, said that brands will get into Twitter during the game because it’s still commanding the attention. “For what Super Bowl is designed for, and let’s be clear, it’s about igniting a moment, and brands need moments in culture,” Thompson said. “So why would you turn off a mechanism that is amazing at doing that.”

On Super Bowl Sunday, Twitter’s conversation will be about the game, and not hot-button topics or polarizing personalities, Thompson said. And even if Twitter is a live wire, that’s what people expect there.

“Twitter is great for making massive inroads and penetration with consumers in a very short window,” Thompson said.