Not everyone will see them, but they’ll be there. They’re regional Super Bowl advertisers.

In addition to the dozens of ads that viewers of Fox’s national Super Bowl broadcast will see on Sunday, there will be another slate of ads for brands including Google, Busch Light, Tullamore DEW Irish Whiskey, and Spruce weed killer running only in certain markets.

These regional advertisers don’t usually get the bragging rights or media coverage that come with a spot on the USA Today Ad Meter, but oftentimes, they see strong ROI for far less money than national advertisers spend, marketing execs said.

“From a consumer standpoint, no one knows the difference,” said Nick Miaritis, chief client officer at VaynerMedia, who’s worked on Super Bowl campaigns that have run regionally for brands like Planter’s and Miller Lite. “Strategically, if you’re not a big national player, it could be the singular most underrated, underpriced advertising vehicle ever created.”

Crunching the numbers: Cost savings often serve as a primary factor for opting for a regional buy over a national one. The cost of even several regional spots can be “a lot more palatable” than a national buy, which will put a brand back as much as $8 million, Elliot Rifkin, group lead, services at TV ad agency Tatari, told Marketing Brew.

• The prices for 30-second regional Super Bowl ads differ based on DMA, but can generally range from about $50,000 in some smaller cities to about $1.4 million in major markets like Chicago, New York, and San Francisco, according to Miaritis.

Paul Coffey, senior brand manager of Tullamore DEW Irish Whiskey, which is running its first Super Bowl ad in Chicago this year, said budget factored into the decision to go the regional route.

“Not everybody can afford to do the full-on national buy,” he said.

Continue reading here.—AM

Nerds’s Super Bowl ad may just be rolling out now, but it was almost a year in the making.

The team started brainstorming in March, right after the success of the brand’s debut Super Bowl ad in 2024, according to Nerds’s global marketing director, Joey Rath. That ad featured an animated Nerds Gummy re-creating a dance from the 1983 film Flashdance, featuring an appearance from creator Addison Rae.

Like the 2024 spot, this year’s ad taps into “newstalgia,” Rath said, and this year’s 30-second spot features rising hip-hop/country artist Shaboozey putting a Gummy Clusters–inspired spin on Louis Armstrong’s hit 1967 song “What a Wonderful World.”

Referencing pop culture of old combined with current celebrity power is a play by the brand to capture Gen Z consumers as well as other demographics, according to Rath.

Read more here.—JS

Why create your own Super Bowl ad when you can have your fans do it for you?

For its 25th appearance in the big game, Doritos revived its Crash the Super Bowl contest, challenging fans to create their own 30-second ads to represent the brand on the big stage. The contest previously ran from 2006 to 2016, producing ads that sparked directors’ careers and consistently ranked among the USA Today Ad Meter’s top five commercials.

This year, more than 2,000 entries were narrowed down to 25 semifinalists by a panel of judges, then three finalists, which were “Abduction” by Dylan Bradshaw and Nate Norell, “Barbershop” by Zach Shenouda and Ryan Robinson, and “Charades” by Mark Blitch. Fans then voted over two weeks to eventually choose the winner: Bradshaw and Norell’s alien-themed spot will be airing at the Super Bowl. As part of the prize, the codirectors will get an all-expenses-paid trip to the game and $1 million.

“Today, user-generated and creator-generated content is like table stakes,” James Wade, senior director of marketing for Doritos, told us. “The tools are more accessible, that way of operating is more acceptable and expected, [so we thought], let’s see what people of this generation can do.”

Continue reading here.—JN

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