Number Crunch

Why Coke and Pepsi Are Punting on Super Bowl Ads This Year

The price for a 30-second spot is falling for the first time in years

$5.5 million: That’s how much ViacomCBS wants advertisers to pay for 30-second ad spots during Super Bowl LV on February 7. Variety reported that earlier this month, both Pepsi and Coca-Cola decided not to air ads during the annual sporting event, historically the most coveted arena for the soda giants to put their rivalry on display.

While Fox, which aired the 2020 Super Bowl, sold out of ad spots for that event by November 2019, earning $435 million in ad revenue, CBS is yet to sell out its ad inventory for this year’s Super Bowl with only a couple of weeks left before the game. What’s more, 2021 marks the first year in a decade where the price of a 30-second ad spot has gone down rather than up, dropping from an all-time high of $5.6 million last year.

The price drop and remaining unsold ad slots reflect advertisers’ anxieties around whether the coronavirus could disrupt this year’s Super Bowl and their cautious spending in a challenging economic environment (plus, with no national election on the horizon, you won’t have Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg dropping $10 million each in dueling political ads during the event). Overall TV ad spending commitments for 2021 could be down by as much as 20%.

Tough news for folks who only watch the Super Bowl for the ads.

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