Forget orange leaves and pumpkin beverages. There’s one true marker that fall is on the way, and it showed up this year heralded with nachos, sliders, and impressive results for advertisers. When the National Football League kicked off its 2024 season earlier this month, it’s safe to say advertisers sacked their engagement goals.
Ads during NFL Week 1 games delivered 48 times more consumer engagement than the average primetime ad on broadcast and cable TV. In other words, brands would need to air, on average, 48 ads during primetime to generate the same response from consumers that they earned from a single ad during the NFL’s opening week.
But that’s not all — we took a dive into the data and pulled out some notable insights about TV advertising’s undisputed champion. Read on for pigskin season wisdom.
Toyota launched its “Every Fan, Every Season” during the season kickoff game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs. And while the Chiefs were victorious on the field, Toyota’s performance during the ad breaks helped the brand top our list of the week’s most engaging advertisers.
The foreign auto giant was responsible for 14.9% of all ad-driven online engagement during Week 1 NFL games, well ahead of the rest of the pack. Toyota was followed by Pepsi (7.9%) and Applebee’s (5.9%), among other high-performing Week 1 advertisers.
Toyota’s top creative celebrates the fervent fanaticism NFL teams so often inspire, across different regions and team affiliations. It shows fans decked out in team merchandise and face paint giddily packing up their vehicles (Toyota, of course) for a day spent supporting their team of choice.
The spot boasts significant star power, featuring players Brock Purdy of the 49ers, Michael Pittman Jr. of the Colts, Puka Nacua of the Rams, and football great Eli Manning.
According to MediaPost, the campaign highlights the longevity of Toyota’s association with football, as well as its status as the “official automotive partner of the NFL.” In addition to its campaign running across linear, digital, and social channels, Toyota is planning in-game engagement features that will see NBC hosts encourage viewers to watch for key moments during the game in order to win exclusive prizes.
Emblems boost engagement: Brand ads that featured the NFL emblem – including Lowe’s, DraftKings, Little Caesars, and others – were 5% more successful than the NFL Week 1 average.
NFL content delivers for the NFL: Week 1 of the NFL was also a highly fruitful platform for the league itself. EDO found 23 airings featuring YouTube TV Sunday Ticket deals or messaging, including spots coming directly from YouTube TV as well as FanDuel, Bud Light, Best Buy, and Verizon. Overall, those spots were about 4% more effective than the average ad aired in week 1 of the NFL.
NFL viewers are watching attentively: EDO found that, on average, spots featuring NFL players or coaches were just as effective as the average ad during Week 1 NFL programming. This indicates that consumers were so engaged with the games, there was no meaningful rise in effectiveness for contextually relevant creative.
For too long, advertisers have relied exclusively on old-fashioned and limited methods like surveys and focus groups to measure effectiveness. But with EDO’s sophisticated, 21st century measurement tools, advertisers get concrete information about not just what customers say about ads, but what they do after seeing them. And with the budget it takes to participate in NFL advertising, there’s no room for ambiguity.
Learn more about how you can take your NFL campaigns to the next level in EDO CEO Kevin Krim’s recent Adweek op-ed here.