Super Bowl LVIII : Market Indicator
February, 08 2024
Consumer Dominated : Ads At $7 Million For 30 Seconds !
On Super Bowl Sunday, February 11, will you be serving Kansas City barbecue or San Francisco cioppino in sourdough bread bowls?
A cat meowing for Hellmann’s mayonnaise, Peyton Manning chucking Bud Light beers to patrons in a bar and Kris Jenner stacking Oreo cookies. They all have one thing in common: Those companies paid seven figures to get their products in front of viewers during this year’s Super Bowl.
For the second consecutive year, the average cost of a 30-second ad spot during the Super Bowl was $7 million. Even as many businesses are being more disciplined with the money they have for marketing, and with spending on advertising slowing in recent years, the cost of a Super Bowl ad continues to go up.
Since first Super Bowl, ad prices have increased 16,371% percent. (see bottom)
Influencer appearances, Gen Z efforts, lots of candy and of course, Taylor Swift, are among the biggest trends in Big Game marketing !
Super Bowl Consumer Blitz
This year’s Super Bowl is getting a consumer related brands ads mirroring the strong consumer spending in the economy.
A Taylor Swift’s connection to the N.F.L. this season has led to an increase in young women watching games.
The news that Kansas City made the Super Bowl was welcomed by health-and-beauty companies, which disproportionately target young women. That demographic has tuned into more football games this season, thanks in large part to Ms. Swift’s appearances at Kansas City games.
NYX Makeup, a subsidiary of L’Oreal, has bought its first Super Bowl ad spot, while Dove is returning with an ad spot for the first time since 2015. E.L.F. cosmetics is advertising for the second straight year.
This year’s Super Bowl is getting a sugar rush with a modern-day record number of candy and sweets brands advertising, as consumers reach for nostalgic treats to ward off stress. In the past 20 years, the most sweets brands advertising in a single Super Bowl was three.
Debunk The Super Bowl Stock Market Prediction Myth
The Super Bowl is the biggest US advertising event each year. It is also the biggest event watched in the States.
See our Marketscope February, 21 2022 The Crypto vs Dotcom Super Bowl.
Let’s look at what can be said about the highlighted ads. This year it is dominated by the large consumer related companies (food, candies, beverage, cosmetics,…).
What does it tell us ? Is the American consumption will keep growing fast or is it just ready to implode ?
While some companies get strong returns from their ads others don’t live long enough to tell the story. Two year ago, FTX ran Super Bowl ad. That same year, FTX blew up. It’s a pattern we’ve seen many times in history. At that time Crypto ads were DOA. Coinbase fell 62% in the year after its ad ran. Trading platform eToro canceled their SPAC plans to go public.
In 2000 the dot.coms needed more eyeballs and the ads were generated to lure in more “greater fools” to keep buying their worthless stocks to remain viable. Dot-com bubble darling Pets.com ran its Super Bowl ad. Six months later, it went bankrupt.
Super Bowl ads this year are dominated by food and beverage brands. We don’t know how this all ends but know the history, folks !
The only prediction we are confident of is that during the Super Bowl television broadcast, there will be many reaction shots of Taylor Swift.
Enjoy the game. But don’t bet your portfolio on the results.
Super Bowl Indicator?
The Super Bowl Indicator is the granddaddy of all of Wall Street’s weird indicators.
It holds that the stock market will end the year with a gain if a National Football Conference team (such as the Philadelphia Eagles) wins the Super Bowl, but that stocks will fall if the American Football Conference team (the Kansas City Chiefs) is the winner. The pigskin-driven theory was promulgated in the late 1970s by Leonard Koppett, a sports reporter for The New York Times.
The Super Bowl Indicator is the stuff of urban legend, with people at your Super Bowl party confidently telling you how it will affect your finances.
So, if the Kansas City Chiefs win, will there be a bear market this year?
But if the San Franciso 49ers win, will there be a bull market in 2024?
The Super Bowl Indicator is an example of purely whimsical sports writing. What began as a fun column many decades ago continues to make headlines every year.
source wikipedia
As of the end of 2023, the indicator has been correct 41 out of 57 times, as measured by the S&P 500 Index. This is a success rate of around 72%.
As Chen of Investopedia points out, “The Super Bowl Indicator is a nonscientific barometer of the stock market. There’s no reason to believe that the winner of a football game dictates the performance of the stock market. However, that hasn’t stopped people from talking and writing about it for the past four decades.”
You might say the Super Bowl Indicator is on a losing streak. In the last 12 years, the indicator has only been right four times for a success rate of 33%.
Any NFL coach with a record like that gets fired in no time.
Until next time !
