When Michigan pulled away from Washington at NRG Stadium in Houston Jan. 8, capturing the CFP National Championship Game by a score of 34-13, advertisers during ESPN’s broadcast may have wanted to sing, “Hail to the Victors,” along with the winning team’s fans.
At EDO, we calculate the impact of Convergent TV advertising by measuring how frequently consumers engage with a brand in the minutes after it airs a national TV ad. And according to our data, ads during the title game generated 91% more engagement on a per-person, per-second basis than the average ad during a primetime broadcast or cable telecast.
And using our ad multiplier metric — which determines the overall impact of an ad by combining average per-person engagement and total viewers — we found that a brand would have had to run 92.1 average broadcast or cable primetime ads to match the engagement resulting from a single ad during the championship game.
Why this year’s title game wasn’t quite the college football ad champion
But what if we told you that the CFP National Championship Game didn’t finish atop EDO’s leaderboards for engagement rate or ad multiplier, and, going even further, it wasn’t even the top Michigan game?
The two New Year’s Day national semifinal games scored higher engagement rates than the title game:
- The Allstate Sugar Bowl, contested between Washington and Texas at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans: +112% more likely to drive consumer engagement than the primetime broadcast and cable average
- The Rose Bowl Game, contested between Michigan and Alabama at The Rose Bowl in Pasadena: +96%
The Rose Bowl also topped the championship game on EDO’s Ad Multiplier chart, as an advertiser would have had to run 104.4 average broadcast or cable primetime ads to match its engagement.
Rest of New Year’s Six games perform well, but not as well as semifinals or title game
For comparison’s sake, ads during broadcasts of the six New Year’s Day bowl games (including the two semifinal contests) were 79% more likely to drive engagement than the benchmark, and a brand would have had to run 46 of those spots to match the impact of a single ad during the Jan. 1 games.
The Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, contested between Ole Miss and Penn State on Dec. 30 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, was the strongest non-playoff, non-New Year’s Six bowl game in terms of engagement rate, performing 71% more effectively than the average primetime or broadcast cable program.
Disney+ takes home National Championship Game ad crown
The top 10 advertisers during the CFP National Championship Game, in terms of engagement rate, were dominated by streaming services and food/drinks, with one antidote to those foods and drinks sneaking onto the list, along with one financial institution:
- Disney+, one airing, +533% more engagement than the average title game ad
- Capital One, two airings, +485%
- Buffalo Wild Wings, one airing, +289%
- Apple TV+, one airing, +282%
- Coors, two airings, +246%
- Wendy’s, one airing, +217%
- Tums, one airing, +214%
- Chili’s, one airing, +196%
- Cheez-It, two airings, +187%
- DoorDash, one airing, +140%
Ready for the Super Bowl? We’ve got you covered.
Now that the college football season is done, it’s the National Football League’s turn to crown a champion at Super Bowl LVIII at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas Feb. 11, and the Big Game’s advertising winners will be crowned shortly thereafter using EDO’s Super Bowl LVIII Ad Ranker.
Data on the most effective advertisers, celebrities and creatives, as well as links to every Super Bowl ad, will be delivered to the inboxes of people who sign up by the morning after the Big Game.
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