The Super Bowl has long served as a prominent front for the long soda war between Coca-Cola and Pepsi. This year, the beverage giants will fight that battle elsewhere.
Coca-Cola said on Friday that it would not run ads on CBS’s Super Bowl LV broadcast, citing a “difficult choice” made to “ensure that we are investing in the right resources during these unprecedented times.” Coca’s ad follows a similar announcement by rival Pepsi, which chose to focus on its annual break show instead of running commercials for its flagship drink (its parent company, PepsiCo, will run a commercial for its Mountain Dew soda, along with with various Frito-Lay snacks).
Coca declined to make executives available for further comment. The company spent $ 10 million on commercials placed on Fox’s Super Bowl LIV broadcast in 2020, according to data from Kantar, an advertising spend tracker.
Beverage companies’ decisions to put their drinks on the sidelines will undoubtedly raise more questions about the financial basics of the Super Bowl during a period of economic flux. The coronavirus pandemic has forced many advertisers to cut their budgets and reallocate spending. In the past, Pepsi suppressed Super Bowl activity during another time of crisis. In 2010, while the country was recovering from a severe recession, Pepsi decided not to run ads for any of its drinks, ending a 23-year run promoting drinks during the Big Game.
CBS, which is seeking about $ 5.5 million for Super Bowl TV advertising packages, has yet to declare a depletion of its commercial stock in the game. Last year’s game generated about $ 435 million in advertising spend, according to Kantar – a new record.
Coca-Cola was left out of the Big Game for the last time in 2019, opting to run a commercial shortly before the start of the broadcast, but not at the event itself. In doing so, the soft drink maker ended an 11-year run of appearances in Super Bowl ads.
Coca-Cola in the past two decades has become a Super Bowl star. Working side by side with advertising agency Wieden + Kennedy, Coca-Cola, to borrow one of its slogans, brought the game to life.
In 2008, the beverage company held a stunning display showing Macy’s Thanksgiving balloon characters (Underdog and Stewie from “Family Guy”) chasing a balloon version of a Coke bottle – only to be overcome by Charlie Brown. Recognizing that more Super Bowl viewers were using smartphones during the game, Coca-Cola in 2013 published a feed on the social networks of its famous animated polar bears commenting on all Super Bowl commercials. During a previous Super Bowl race (the soft drink giant took an eight-year break from the game after 1998), Coca pulled the heart out with a commercial featuring former Pittsburgh player Steeler “Mean” Joe Greene throwing a shirt at a young football fan. The appearance of the ad in the Super Bowl XIV in 1980 helped make it a classic (although the commercial had previously been shown on TV.
More to come …