Temu’s big Super Bowl ad buy—the results of running the same commercial 5 times

It felt like déjà vu the second time Temu’s ad ran during the Super Bowl. But by the fifth time the animated spot aired on Sunday night, it had become something of a recurring nightmare. the 5th temu commerical playing after the 49ers lost was my final straw #SuperBowl pic.twitter.com/ZhCJWzo4ws— Steph ♡ (@shopluva) February 12, 2024 Created in-house, the 30-second ad shows a girl dancing around and throwing out low prices to everyone as the brand’s “Shop like a billionaire” song plays. Unlike other marketers, like Homes.com, for example, which had several different ads run throughout the night, Temu aired the same exact ad in the first, second and third quarters and then during overtime and the postgame coverage, for nearly $30 million in estimated total media costs. But Temu, a low-price online marketplace backed by the deep pockets of Chinese owner PDD Holdings, is not like other marketers. It burst on the scene at last year’s Super Bowl with a similarly cheesy commercial, which aired twice, and immediately began building awareness. Despite the tediousness of its advertising, the Super Bowl spots have been effective at scaling awareness quickly. “As low production as it was and as cringey as it might appear to run the same ad five times, it seems to have worked really well in terms of how many people saw it and how many of those people ended up looking for Temu and installing the app,” said Juozas Kaziukėnas, founder and chief executive of Marketplace Pulse, which analyzes e-commerce marketplaces. According to Sprout Social, which provides social listening data, Temu was the second-most mentioned Super Bowl advertiser this year after Verizon. Sprout found that Temu had 40,448 mentions and 420,714 engagements, including likes, shares and comments on Feb. 11. Temu declined to comment. The best and worst Super Bowl ads Ad Age reviews the Big Game commercials Click here As of today, the marketplace boasts 77.5 million active users on its app in the U.S., according to consumer intelligence firm GWS Magnify. That compares with 5.9 million from December 2022, before the company began its first Super Bowl onslaught last year. Whether consumers love or hate the ads is irrelevant, experts say. “Sentiment is not predictive in any research we’ve done of things like sales lift or improvement in market share,” said Kevin Krim, president and CEO of media measurement company EDO. “Whereas what we see time and again in our data and research that we've done with third parties, you'll see that higher engagement will lead to higher market share over time,” he added, noting Temu as a prime example. EDO found that Temu’s online engagement was up 1,342% on Sunday. Temu’s spending on the Super Bowl this year is just a drop in the bucket for the company, Kaziukėnas noted, citing the company’s massive $3 billion U.S. ad budget last year. Not long ago, PDD Holdings, which along with Temu owns Chinese online retailer Pinduoduo, passed Alibaba in valuation to become China’s biggest e-commerce company. Read more: Top 5 social media moments from Super Bowl LVIII As part of this year’s Super Bowl campaign, Temu is also giving away $5 million in coupons and credits, an effort that began Feb. 3 and will run through this week. On Sunday, the company gave away an additional $10 million, a spokeswoman said. “Temu since Day 1 has been very focused on both creating reasons for people to open the app or install the app and also on getting its users to share the app with their friends,” said Kaziukėnas. “They’re able to do these bold, aggressive marketing moves which we don’t really see in retail,” he said, noting the focus on sweepstakes. “Temu is doing things in retail that other retailers at least in Western markets shy away from.” Contributing: Parker Herren Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Enter here

Temu’s big Super Bowl ad buy—the results of running the same commercial 5 times

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