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Super Bowl Alert: e.l.f. is in and P&G is out—plus, Apple Music teases Usher halftime show
Another rookie is in
E.l.f., Uber Eats and Booking.com are the latest brands to confirm Super Bowl buys. While Uber is making its fourth straight appearance and Booking.com its third straight, cosmetics marketer e.l.f. is spending big on a national in-game ad for the first time after doing an extensive regional appearance last year. E.l.f is the eighth rookie advertiser in the game, which now has 27 confirmed ads, after Volkswagen and Kia confirmed buys earlier this week. That equates to roughly half the total ad inventory available.
To keep track of all the advertisers running national spots in the game, bookmark Ad Age’s regularly updated Super Bowl ad chart.
Here come the teasers
Teaser season—that one time of year when brands can get attention for making ads about ads—is heating up, giving us a better sense of what brands have planned for the Feb. 11 game.
Oreo is poised to turn back the clock to 2007, the first year of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” Kris Jenner stars in the Mondelēz brand’s teaser sporting a hairdo from that era, suggesting the Big Game ad will play on some nostalgia from the reality show that catapulted Jenner and her daughters into superstardom. Volkswagen, which is making its first Super Bowl appearance in a decade, is going even further back—to 1949, when it first entered the U.S. market, a moment captured in a teaser referencing the iconic Beetle. Pringles, meanwhile, hinted that its ad will feature a celebrity with a mustache similar to the one sported by the Pringles character. FanDuel introduced wrestler-actor John Cena into its storyline and BetMGM today revealed that Tom Brady would star in its ad, along with Vince Vaughn and Wayne Gretzky.
Hear from brands advertising in the game at Ad Age’s virtual Super Bowl event on Feb. 6. Register and learn more at AdAge.com/SuperBowlPlaybook.
Toyota and P&G sidelined
When Toyota announced it had signed an expensive NFL sponsorship late last year, it seemed likely the automaker would be back in the game after taking last year off. Not so as Toyota confirmed this week it will instead focus on on-the-ground marketing in Vegas. Toyota was a consistent Big Game advertiser not long ago—it skipped the 2017 game but held streaks of running ads in every game from 2018 to 2022 and from 2011 to 2016. The automotive Super Bowl consistency crown now belongs to Kia, which is making its third straight appearance this year and 15th overall Big Game ad.
Procter & Gamble is also sitting out the game, the company confirmed to Ad Age, marking the first time since 2016 that the consumer packaged goods giant has not had an in-game ad.
For more on Toyota’s decision and other pigskin marketing news, check out our continuously updated football marketing blog.
Vegas style
The Las Vegas setting offers brands all kinds of unique marketing opportunities, including running ads on the Sphere, which Campaign reports is netting $1 million to $2 million per ad for Super Bowl week.
Meantime, the NFL has selected three brands with Vegas roots to create a collection of Super Bowl-themed merchandise—Feature, Love, Hand & Heart and Urban Necessities. The league is launching the collection on Feb. 8 at a pop-up at the Nine Twenty venue in Vegas with an event produced by Black-owned marketing agency Six Degrees.
PepsiCo’s Tostitos is planning its own Vegas pop-up—a dining experience called Tost by Tostitos that it promises will “bring football fans and foodies together on a Las Vegas-inspired culinary journey.” It is giving away tickets to the game, travel accommodations and a reservation at the pop-up for one fan who would be served tableside by Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins.
ATL reppin’ in the desert
But while there will be plenty of Vegas culture highlighted during Super Bowl week, Atlanta will also have a presence—mostly in the form of Usher, the Atlanta-based R&B superstar who is performing at halftime. Halftime show sponsor Apple Music recently dropped a video teasing the show, calling it “One performance. 30 years in the making.” The teaser features Usher’s 2004 hit “Yeah!,” with the video including scenes with a church choir, Atlanta children and even a brief clip of LeBron James singing “Yeah!” as documented by Atlanta TV station Fox 5.
The NFL today revealed the other musical talent for the game: Reba McEntire will sing the national anthem, Post Malone will sing “America the Beautiful” and Andra Day will sing “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
This day in Super Bowl history
Super Bowl X was played on this day in 1976 when the Steelers edged the Cowboys (then “America’s Team”) in Miami’s Orange Bowl, drawing an average of 57.7 million viewers on CBS. (Last year’s game on Fox drew 115 million viewers.)
Up With People performed at halftime. The youth organization on its website credits the performance for “forever changing the format of the Super Bowl halftime show” because it was the first time the show featured something besides a marching band. (Note: Usher’s 2024 teaser does include a marching band, albeit a much hipper one than those in Super Bowl days of old.) Ads cost $125,000 for 30 seconds, compared with about $7 million today. Brands in the game included Xerox, which plugged one of its copiers by showing a monk use it to satisfy a supervisor who demanded 500 copies of some sacred literature—it was a “miracle.”
For a complete look at Big Game commercial history, check out Ad Age's Super Bowl ad archive.