Take a close look at this article by Abraham Geifman, digital marketing consultant, where you can discover the advertising and business dynamics behind the sports industry that generates more money for brands, companies, advertisements, and commercials than any other in the world. Abraham provides advice and insights that will help you apply the Super Bowl’s commercial marketing strategies to your business.

I want to share my thoughts on the importance of advertising and what occurred during the Super Bowl. It is no longer merely a sporting celebration; it has become a social and family event, regardless of which teams are playing. The audience—or ratings—this program attracts across North America and worldwide is enormous: more than 200 million people in the United States watch the Super Bowl.

This event has periods of higher and lower viewership, commonly described as ratings. What are ratings? Amid today’s digital frenzy, it is a term we do not discuss as often, but “ratings” represent the number of television sets turned on and tuned to a particular program.

The Super Bowl is typically one of the most-watched programs of the year, at least in the United States. For those of us interested in communication and marketing, it offers two spectacles: the game itself and the advertising.

This time of year—usually the first weekend in February, when the Super Bowl takes place—has become the year’s most important moment for many brands and companies to launch products and present new communications to their audiences.

February is therefore becoming an important month for launching products, new platforms, and new topics. On this occasion, many businesses began discussing 5G. For example, numerous companies promoted 5G in the United States, alongside new television series, new vehicle launches, snacks, fast food, and other products.

The Advertising “Magic” of the Super Bowl

Interestingly, when you watch the game, the most highly produced and elaborate commercials—which were undoubtedly the most expensive placements—begin appearing during the second half. In fact, I understand that the most expensive commercial breaks of the year in the United States occur during the two-minute warning in the fourth quarter, at the end of the Super Bowl.

This is the most sought-after advertising space for brands investing heavily in promoting their messages because it is when ratings are at their highest. Ratings increase as the game progresses. For obvious reasons, viewership at the beginning of the game may not be as high as it is toward the end.

Similarly, the halftime show featuring Shakira and Jennifer Lopez became a highly viral moment on social media. At an event such as the Super Bowl, this segment attracts an enormous audience, making the advertising activity surrounding it exceptionally intense.

On YouTube, we see commercials reaching 20 million or even 50 million views. For example, a Jeep advertisement featuring Bill Murray has 20 million views, while an Amazon commercial currently has 59 million views after airing only a few days ago during the Super Bowl broadcast.

Creativity and innovation are important for captivating an audience and achieving this level of impact through advertising and Super Bowl commercials. However, it is also striking that, in digital marketing today, we tend to place far greater emphasis on an advertisement’s reach than on its frequency.

Because of the audience size, advertising saturation, and high cost, I found it difficult to identify a commercial that aired more than once. Nevertheless, we must remember that reach and frequency—the two essential components of the traditional advertising model—remain fundamental. Before digital marketing existed, reach and the number of people who could see an advertisement were extremely important indicators.

The Key Is Reach

Today, we must also keep sight of the importance of message repetition. Our brains process content and move it from short-term memory into much longer-term memory through repetition. Digital media has somewhat neglected this issue, focusing more on reach than frequency. Yet frequency remains important, and many of the commercials broadcast during the Super Bowl have shorter 15- and 10-second versions.

That formula becomes more complicated in voluntarily consumed media such as digital channels. You open YouTube and encounter a video containing an unsolicited commercial. You may or may not watch it in full, but when you encounter the same advertisement across different digital channels or media, those exposures can collectively create a level of frequency that could not otherwise be achieved.

The challenge involving frequency and reach is that frequency is not as easy to achieve in digital media as it is in traditional media. Here is one fact: for a radio advertisement to reach a genuinely high level of persuasiveness, it must be repeated an average of approximately 20 times per hour on each radio station.

We may not be counting the number of commercials we hear on the radio, but they are repeated frequently enough for the message to resonate and generate meaningful impact. Digital media must therefore find ways to achieve similar repetition while recognizing that the contextual challenges are different.

The Strategy for Generating Audience Engagement

The second issue is reach itself. One aspect of the Super Bowl commercial lineup that caught my attention was the production quality, special effects, and creativity. Two elements kept the audience engaged throughout the commercial breaks: creativity that generated humor and creativity that moved us emotionally.

I saw several highly emotional advertisements. One Google commercial was particularly moving, while others promoting causes and NGOs were also highly emotional, and some were very humorous. Another noteworthy element was the large number of movie actors and singers appearing in these commercials to generate an even greater impact.

One final thought is that television and traditional-media advertising are far from disappearing amid the digital boom. Television should be used to advertise products with much broader target markets or audiences, allowing advertisers to achieve the lowest possible cost per person reached.

Television is the least expensive form of mass media. Advertising may cost millions of pesos or dollars, but the cost per person reached is still exceptionally low. Not even digital media has matched that advantage. Even so, not every product is suitable for such a large advertising investment. The products must appeal to a very broad consumer segment—mass-market products and products that I describe as low-involvement purchases.

Advertising in traditional media will not disappear. It is evolving and must be complemented by digital media to achieve the right combination of reach and frequency.