The true cost of a Super Bowl ad? You don’t want to know

The Super Bowl is a lot of things. NFL title game. Pop concert. Cultural institution. It’s also The Only Day People Care About Ads. That last one is worth a lot of money to the brands who decide to advertise during the big game. 

Back in 2000, E-Trade used its Super Bowl ad to joke about how much money it spent. A chimp hits play on a tape deck, climbs up on a lawn chair, and proceeds to clap and dance for 30 seconds. The tagline? “Well, we just wasted $2,000,000.”

But how much does a Super Bowl commercial really cost? We’ve all probably seen headlines about the outrageous costs of a single 30-second spot, which, this year, is nearing about $8 million. And if we scroll back a decade, the cost in 2015 was about $4.5 million. 

Hold on, though. That’s for only 30 seconds of air time. Many brands have ads that are at least 60 seconds, sometimes even 90 seconds, and still others have multiple ads throughout the game. Back in 2018, in one of the greatest Super Bowl campaigns ever, Tide ran six ads. And again, that’s just the air time during the game and doesn’t include David Harbour’s cut.

So how much does a Super Bowl ad really cost . . . what kind of numbers are we talking here? Let’s dig into it. 

By the numbers

I spoke to sources who have worked on multiple Super Bowl campaigns for years and are familiar with the costs for this year’s game. They agreed to talk on background and outline the costs based on their experience across more than 10 Super Bowl campaigns, including this year. Here’s how it breaks down:

Agency costs
Let’s start where most of these commercial ideas do—the ad agencies. The bulk of Super Bowl ads are created by ad agencies, whether on annual retainer or working on the big game ad as a one-off. According to my sources, the ad agency costs for Super Bowl work can range from $3 million on up to about $6 million dollars. 

Production costs
Once the idea is decided on, you have to make it. Film production costs for these average about $3 million to $4 million. Then there is post-production—editing, sound, visual effects, that kind of stuff—which hits about $1 million. 

The talent
Now, who is in your commercial? According to iSpot.tv, celebrities have starred in around 70% of the ads in every Super Bowl since 2020. While a non-celebrity might run you about $250,000, even a B-list celebrity would cost about $1 million to cast. More realistically, say my sources, that number is about $3.5 to $5 million. Now think about all the ads you’ve seen already this year with multiple celebs—Uber Eats and Pringles, anyone?

The music
Okay, now what about a soundtrack? Plenty of ads have featured well-known songs. Budweiser loves a good tune. Last year, its ad featured “The Weight” by The Band, and this year’s spot has The Bellamy Brothers’s classic “Let Your Love Flow.” Licensing to use a popular song can range from $1 million to about $3 million. Meanwhile, Mountain Dew turned Seal into a seal and his 1994 hit “Kiss From a Rose” into a soda jingle “Kiss From a Lime.” 

Okay, so what’s our total for a 30-second spot so far?

Let’s say, $4.5 million for the agency, $3.5 million for film production, $1 million for post-production, $8 million for two celebs (at $4 mil apiece), $2 million for a great song, and of course, the $8 million for the 30-seconds of airtime. 

That’s a grand total of $27 million. 

And we’re not done yet . . .

You need to spend more on digital and social media ads, plus any other activations, which could add between $3 million and $10 million to the final cost. 

Oh, and another thing: In order to even have the privilege of buying that 30 seconds of ad space for $8 million, the Fox network requires advertisers to commit to another $8 million in media commercial time throughout the rest of the year. That means your original $8 million is really $16 million. 

After adding about $5 million for advertising and promoting your ad everywhere else, plus the extra $8 million of advertising commitment to Fox, we’ve come to our final destination: $40 million.

So, what does it all mean? Could it possibly be worth it? A source close to Dunkin’ told CNN last year that Dunkin’ sold more donuts the day after the Super Bowl than any other day in its history. The crypto exchange Coinbase’s lo-fi spot in 2022 attracted so much interest that its app crashed because so many people went to download it all at the same time.

Americans are expected to legally bet $1.39 billion on the Super Bowl this year, but they’re not the only ones taking a gamble. No matter how hard the commercials are trying to make you laugh, for the brands spending this kind of money, the big game is no joke.

View the full article