Marketing Briefing: Is the early ad rollout to blame for a lackluster Super Bowl?

For marketers, the stakes of the Super Bowl are clear. It’s the one night of the year when people eagerly await the advertising with high expectations. It should be the venue where marketers find a grand or silly or audacious or inspiring — or whatever adjective fits — way to say the thing that they want to say to people and make the (at least) $8 million media spend worth it.

But those very stakes and the need to make the outsized spend worth it may be working against marketers’ better instincts, as they are desperate to create something that will appeal to everyone, but may ultimately appeal to no one. This year, marketers have been taking a more light-hearted approach to advertising around the Big Game, leaning on comedy and celebrities, recognizing that it’s a more delicate environment given the fractured nature of the country.

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