Another regular Super Bowl advertiser is sitting out the game. Kia will break its 11-year Big Game streak, joining Hyundai, Budweiser, Coke and Pepsi as big-name brands that are opting out of in-game ads as they shift priorities during COVID.
“After a decade of creative and award-winning Super Bowl campaigns, Kia will not be advertising in Super Bowl LV,” Russell Wager, VP of marketing for Kia Motors North America, said in a statement, adding that the brand would instead “expand its charitable initiatives in support of America’s youth.”
The automaker did not detail its contribution this year, but pointed to two separate $1 million donations aimed at supporting America’s homeless youth population that were made in 2020 as the pandemic set in. Kia in 2019 began its “Great Unknowns” youth scholarship program, plugging it as part of its Super Bowl ad campaign that year.
The cost of 30 seconds in the year’s game is an average of $5.6 million. That does not include the costs of ad production and talent. So, Kia would have to make quite a sizable charitable donation to match what it normally spends for the Super Bowl.