This saved them millions of dollars in advertising costs, and one of their biggest rivals recognized their wisdom…
In 2018, General Motors decided not to run an ad during the Superbowl. Considering that it cost $5 million to purchase a 30-second spot for the big game–not to mention the actual production cost of the ad itself–they made the right choice. Ford must have agreed, because they bowed out of the game, too.
GM has been running ads only sporadically since 2012. In 2012, GM dropped the bombshell that they were dropping their advertising for the 2013 Super Bowl (XLVII).
This was an unheard of event, particularly by a very large company.
Just a few days after General Motors upset the Facebook IPO apple cart, the world’s largest automaker dropped another bombshell on the sensibilities of the marketing world: CMO Joel Ewanick revealed that he’s planning to take GM advertisements out of the Super Bowl and won’t advertise in the next one, on CBS on February 3.
“We understand the reach the Super Bowl provides, but with the significant increase in price, we simply can’t justify the expense,” Ewanick said in a statement.
If your advertising generated profits for your business, would you cut it?
If you were measuring your advertising campaigns and, looking at the numbers, you could visibly identify that the money you spent on advertising produced some level of profit . . . .would you cut it loose?
Maybe you would if you knew you could invest that same money in some other way and generate an even better return. Or you might if you didn’t really know what kind of return the ad was generating.
The cost of running a 30-second commercial — just the airtime, not counting the costs of developing the commercials — in the 2012 Super Bowl XLVI was a minimum of $3.5 million. The cost for a 30-second spot in the 2013 Super Bowl increased to around $3.8 million. That’s an 8.6% increase. And what’s the main function of those steep costs?
RAISING AWARENESS?
Besides GM, many other major auto brands have come to rely on Super Bowl ads to create awareness, fortify their brands and help launch important products — even vehicles that aren’t actually coming down the pike for months.
Create awareness.
That’s an expensive business to be in. It’s evidently becoming so expensive that even the big players think twice.
Small businesses can benefit from learning and implementing direct-response marketing techniques. Creating awareness is for the big boys who have lots of excess money to spend (waste?). But even they have to wonder if there’s a better way. You can see that in action when companies like GM change advertising tactics that have, for so long, been held dear.
If you learn the basics of direct-response advertising, you won’t have to worry about these same kinds of problems. Big budgets create slow learners.
You can start today by signing up for my free 12-lesson course by entering your email address in the empty field on this page and clicking “Sign me up!”