Food Spending and Football – Gearing Up for Super Bowl 2012
01/25/2012 – According to The National Restaurant Association, approximately 48 million Americans will order takeout or delivery food from a restaurant while watching what the NFL is billing as the “super sequel” football game between east coast rivals the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. Another 12 million are expected to visit a restaurant or bar to watch the game as well as the commercials which in previous years receive almost as much attention as the game itself.
That translates to nearly 13 million restaurant employees gearing up to take advantage of the financial impact of roughly 100 million people enjoying the non-official Super Bowl Sunday holiday. With all eyes on game day, Seth Winter, SVP of Sales & Marketing for NBC Sports Group told Advertising Age that the network has sold out of their national broadcast availability for the
game. Winter reported to the publication that the average price for a Super Bowl package this year was $3.5 million.
In previous years, according to Kantar Media, the top three annual spending on ads played during the Super Bowl were Anheuser-Busch, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola.
According to Advertising Age, the big three food and beverage industry spenders have again committed to buying ads for Super Bowl XLVI. This year, the big three have been joined by food manufacturers Dannon and M&M’s.
- Anheuser-Busch InBev, a consistent Super Bowl advertiser over the last decade, has purchased 4 ½ minutes* of ad time for its Budweiser brands. Paul Chibe, Vice President of Marketing for the company shared their Super Bowl plans with AdAge. Most significantly, the company is using two spots to promote Bud Light Platinum. The marketing for Platinum is aimed at attracting the young urban market “who have switched to hard liquor,” according to Chibe.
- Coca-Cola, a frequent but not annual Super Bowl advertiser, has extensive plans this year designed around a multi-media campaign that use the Coca-Cola polar bears in an effort to keep viewers attention throughout the game.
- Dannon Yogurt is expected to promote their Oikos Greek yogurt in their 30-second spot*
- M&M's parent company, Mars, is using the game to re-introduce brown M&M’s into their iconic candy mix with the addition of a new “spokes-candy”- Ms. Brown*
- PepsiCo's Frito-Lay division will be culminating their annual “Crash the Super Bowl” ad creation contest running the winning 30-second commercial running at least once during the game.
- PepsiCo Beverages will air at least two 30-second* commercials during the game.
*According to Advertising Age.
In addition to brand marketers using Super Bowl attention to drive their brands and restaurants offering Super Bowl specials and take out menus, grocery stores enjoy tremendous sales due to the majority of fans who watch the annual game on their own couch or at a friend’s house. According to The Nielsen Company, game day related parties have driven just under $700 million is sales in a single year. The Nielsen chart (February, 2011) on the left illustrates the revenue driven to snack food segments.
According to this year’s third annual SUPERVALU(R) "Snack Down" Survey by Harris Interactive, snack foods will continue to be fan favorites for Super Bowl 2012. Survey respondents reported their food favorites are dips and spreads (32 percent) followed by chicken wings (23 percent), both up slightly in popularity from last year. Tied for third place at 14 percent were pizza and salty snacks such as chips, peanuts, pretzels or popcorn.
With the tight association between eating, drinking and the Super Bowl, it is hard to find any food and beverage merchandiser not impacted by the game.
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