This year, for the first time in recent memory, staple advertisers opted out of paying big dollars for their usual Super Bowl ads. Have we finally moved beyond the peak in Super Bowl ads spending?

Super Bowl ads are what bring both fans and non-fans of football together every year. We wait to see which celebrities will make an appearance, which brands gave it their all, and who fell short in one of the year’s most significant media investments. This year, however, Super Bowl ads felt a little different. There wasn’t the same pazzazz to which we have become accustomed, and some familiar faces were left off the map. It begs the question: is the Golden Age of Super Boal ads behind us?

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While it’s always fun to talk about who was advertising, this year, it seems more pertinent to focus on the brands that opted out of their traditional Super Bowl ads spots. Namely, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Budweiser, and Audi, to name a few.

Let’s start by stating the obvious: this wasn’t your average year for advertisers. Ad budgets were slashed across the board – in nearly all major industries – and that was bound to have an impact on Super Bowl ads spending. But while that notion played a critical part in major brands’ decisions not to advertise, we need to think of the long-term implications of brands as notable as Audi and Coca-Colaopting not to advertise their namesakes during the Big Game, while continuing to advertise elsewhere.

A Critical Shift Driven by Data

Let’s start with Audi. In 2011, Audi claimed to be the first major brand to use a hashtag in their Super Bowl ads in an effort to drive additional value by continuing the conversation online. This year, instead of running any commercials, Audi focused all of its efforts on promoting the new release of an all-electric e-tron GT digitally. Why does this matter? Largely because the new car was unveiled virtually February 9th, two days after the Super Bowl. Traditionally, this would have been an ideal time to make the announcement, then maintain that momentum into the release, only a couple of days later.

By foregoing the major spend on airtime and a commercial, brands like Audi had the benefit of focusing entirely on drumming up interest online, with more trackable mechanisms in place. For example, one of the ways in which Audi garnered interest and collected prospect information was on Twitter. They used Sponsored Tweets to tease the release, and by liking the content, users were automatically invited to the unveiling. This not only streamlines the process, but it provides significantly more insights for the brand at a far reduced cost.

Vocal, Conscious Decisions

Budweiser has been advertising during the Super Bowl for 37 uninterrupted years. While they still had plenty of brand coverage at the game, they did not create a commercial, and instead donated $1 million to vaccine awareness and education campaigns. Coca-Cola, while still buying ad time for some of its non-namesake brands, issued this statement on why it would not be advertising its main product:

“This difficult choice was made to ensure we are investing in the right resources during these unprecedented times. We’ll be toasting to our fellow brands with an ice-cold Coke from the sidelines.”

By explicitly stating that a brand like Coca-Cola needs to “ensure [they] are investing in the right resources” it is clear that, while we hope things move back to a state of normalcy by the next Super Bowl, the willingness of brands to invest as considerably in Super Bowl ads as they have in the past might not be as great. The capabilities of digital, ranging from campaign targeting to data collection to goal-orientation, are going to be more important than ever. We have been building to that for a long time, and this year appears to have led us to an apex that has the potential to have lasting consequences to the media spend landscape.

Don’t Count It Out Just Yet

To make any finite conclusion based on this past year would be a fool’s errand, but that is not to say that there will not be lasting changes to result. While we can almost certainly say that companies like Coca-Cola and Budweiser will continue to be major players when it comes to campaigns like the Super Bowl, how ad dollars shift in 2020/21 to focus more seriously on data and longevity might be a permanent fixture as we continue to move ahead.