5 Fascinating Super Bowl Ad Spending Trends

Which industry spends the most on Super Bowl ads? How did Walt Disney change the 2006 Super Bowl? And which huge brand advertised only once in the last 15 years? With help from the detailed, interactive charts compiled by The Wall Street Journal in 2015, we came up with some of the most fascinating Super Bowl advertising spending trends from the last 15 years.

Trend #1: The Year TV Broke the Auto and Beverage Industries

From 2000 to 2005, the beverage industry was the top dog among Super Bowl advertisers. In 2000, it spent a total of $31.5 million; by 2005, that figure rose to $40.8 million - a jump of almost 30%. Most of those dollars came from Anheuser-Busch and Anheuser-Busch InBev (the two companies merged in 2008) - the brewer giant responsible for Budweiser and Bud Light, and to a lesser degree – PepsiCo and Coca Cola. Beverages returned to take the #1 spot in 2007, riding the wave until 2010. Since then, the auto industry, previously the #2 spender, has solidly held the top spot.

For one brief year, in 2006, a different player took over – ousting both of the beverage and auto industries from the #1 spot. 2006 was the only year in the last decade and a half in which the media industry managed to spend more than cars and beers. With Walt Disney footing 50% of the bill, the media industry managed a total ad spend of $35 million in 2006.

Why? In 2006, Walt Disney brought back its successful I’m going to Disney World! campaign, first launched in 1987.
This was the first ad of the campaign:

Disney resumed the campaign in 2006 in honor of Super Bowl XL. They projected scenes from the campaign onto a Detroit skyscraper, hosting city of that year’s Super Bowl. During the game, the Disney ad showed team members of the Steelers and Seahawks repeating the famous phrase.

For what it’s worth, the beverage industry still had the most well-liked and memorable ad from that year. According to USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter, Anheuser-Busch’s Bud Light ad “Magic Refrigerator” took the top spot that year.

It was a pretty awesome Bud Light Super Bowl commercial:

Trend #2: The Year Cars Learned to Fly

2011 marked the year cars took over, never to descend from their lofty #1 spot as Super Bowl biggest spender. Since 2011, cars and trucks have outspent the second largest ad buying industry (beverages) by at least $31 million. In 2011, the auto industry spent 58% more than the beverages industry. In 2014, it outspent beverages by $50.4 million –75% more than beverages.

The fault, or credit, of the 2011 auto surge, lies with General Motors. GM went from a $0 investment in 2009 and 2010 to a $21.7 million ad buy in 2011. Hyundai and Volkswagen also upped their ante, increasing their Super Bowl ad buy by 30% and 40% respectively in 2011.

And it was not only a year of quantity for cars, but also of quality. Among the notable ads that ran during the Super Bowl, GM ran this pretty awesome Chevy - Transformers ad during Super Bowl 2011:

Volkswagen also made a big splash that year with their Darth Vader Volkswagen’s spot. According to video metrics company Unruly, The Force is the most shared Super Bowl ad of all time – garnering 63.6 million shares as of January 2016.

Chrysler: Imported from Detroit was another high profile ad which ran during Super Bowl 2011. Apart from being the most expensive Super Bowl ad ever made ($12.4 million), Chrysler took Detroit’s own hip hop star Eminem, and brought some pride and happiness back to that beaten city.

Trend #3: One Hit Wonder: Google

Google has been conspicuously absent from Super Bowl advertising in the last 15 years. It advertised only once, during Super bowl XLIV (2010), when it debuted with its 1 minute Parisian Love ad.

The most interesting thing about this ad, which isn’t that interesting by itself, is that Google didn’t even make it especially for the big game. According to a blog post by Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, the ad was on YouTube for over three months before the game. It had a whole lot of France and Google, but no links at all to either the NFL or football.

Trend #4: Just 7 Brands Max Out Spending in Beverage Industry

While the auto industry has been the biggest spender in 2006 and between 2011 and 2014, the beverages industry has kept the number 1 spot for ten years between 2000 and 2014. The interesting thing here is this: the beverages industry is one of the least diversified industries to advertise in Super Bowls. The beverages industry has had a total of 6 brands in those 14 years. Except for 2009 and 2014, in which four different beverage brands advertised, no year has seen more than three beverage brands advertise in tandem.

The automotive industry, the first and second largest spender through the years, has no less than 17 brands advertising through the years. Nine of them advertised in 2014.

The most diversified is the agriculture, food and restaurant industry, with no less than 26 different brands advertising in Super Bowls. The industry’s biggest spend was during Super Bowl 2014, when eight different brands advertised during the game.

Trend #5: TV Takes Over (And Animals) in 2015

According to Bloomberg, which tracked every Super Bowl XLIX commercial (2015), the auto industry was the biggest spender ($121.5 million in total), followed by the media industry. Other interesting numbers include: