2016 NFL Marketing Efforts in Review

Agency

Read Time: 2 Min

The NFL has the highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world and the culminating event, The Super Bowl is among the biggest club sporting events in the world. With The Super Bowl fast approaching, here’s a recap of their biggest marketing news over the past year as well as some ads you can’t miss on February 5.

 

Twitter Streaming Partnership

New this season, the NFL began a streaming partnership with Twitter, to stream all 10 Thursday Night Football games globally. In addition to streaming the videos live, the partnership included in-game highlights as well as pre-game Periscope broadcasts from players and teams, giving fans an immersive experience. While the final viewing numbers have not yet been reported, the first game drew 243,000 people during an average minute of the game and reached 2.1 million people as compared to 15.4 million TV viewers. Since this is the first livestream opportunity in Twitter’s history, we’ll have to wait and see how successful it was this season.

 

Snapchat Partnership

After partnering with Snapchat in 2015, this season the NFL decided to extend it to a two-year deal. The partnership included broadcasting highlights from every single game throughout the season, via the Live Story feature. Snapchat also helped the NFL produce Live Stories for the NFL Draft and the NFL Scouting Combine. The deal also made the NFL the first sports league with its own “Discover” channel. Finally, Snapchat collaborated with the NFL to create geofilters for all 32 NFL clubs.

 

Ads You Can’t Miss

The Super Bowl is one of the single most expensive nights for advertisers. As evidenced by the $5 million price tag this year. The price for Super Bowl ads have gone up 76% in the last decade, according to Kantar Media. Here are a few ads we’re looking forward to during Super Bowl LI.

 

Anheuser-Busch InBev

Anheuser-Busch InBev will run four ads during the game. We’re looking forward to the 60-second Budweiser spot. The spot will dramatize German immigrant Adolphus Busch’s journey to America, where he created Budweiser in 1876.

 

Bai Brands

The antioxidant infused drink makers has created a 30-second spot produced completely in-house. The ad features Justin Timberlake who also played “an integral role in the development of the ad.”

 

Skittles

This year, Skittles is romancing the rainbow with a nod to romantic gestures from the movies. Check out a teaser.

 

See all the ads with Ad Age’s complete Ad Chart.

 

Do you want to make a splash like the NFL and Super Bowl advertisers? Take a look at what we offer, and then reach out to get your project started.

 

Image credit: Denver Broncos

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