Last night’s kickoff to the 2021-22 National Football League season was an exciting way to start the new league year and a huge win for NFL advertisers, NBC, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the league. As usual, the biggest winner may have been forever young Bucs QB Tom Brady, both on and off the field.
EDO data estimates total ad spend was up 16% to over $60M for last night’s kickoff game versus last year’s kickoff game. The number of ads in the game were also up by roughly the same amount. Search Engagement, our proprietary measure of the increase in online search activity for a brand or product in the minutes immediately following a TV ad airing, also was significantly higher, generating 21% more Search Engagement versus last year’s kickoff game average. This represents an average of roughly 20,000 incremental searches for each advertiser’s ad airing, up from last year’s 17,000 average.
Who did and didn’t advertise: A year-over-year comparison
A closer analysis of our data unveiled clear trends and clear winners. For starters, post-COVID trends were obvious based on who advertised and how often. As the chart below shows, movie studios and restaurant brands both had significant presences throughout last night’s game. Despite the industry facing significant supply chain and chip shortages, the automotive industry only stepped back a bit from last year’s game, while the Internet and Telecommunications sector had the most significant drop in ad airings.
Winners and surprises
No doubt, Tom Brady was the biggest winner on and off the field last night. Should we expect anything less by now? He started his record-setting 300th NFL regular-season game, orchestrated yet another last-minute game-winning drive, and helped drive significant levels of search for two brands.
First, Brady’s Subway ad generated the highest levels of search volume in the restaurant industry.
Then for an astounding encore, Brady and his wife, supermodel Gisele Bündchen, appeared in ads for Crypto trading exchange FTX Crypto Derivatives Exchange and helped generate the second- and third-highest levels of search volume for an individual ad (excluding movies). Only the star-studded Chevrolet Silverado ad created higher levels of search volume for the entire night. (see full breakdown of Search Engagement Volume per industry and links to noted ads below)
With the Chevrolet ad leading the way, the automotive industry also had reason to celebrate last night. Auto ads generated 71% more Search Engagement compared to last year’s average. That means an average of approximately 50,000 incremental searches for auto brands were generated by each ad last night, significantly up from last year’s 29,000 average.
If you’re an NFL advertiser and want to know more about how your ads and industry will perform throughout the NFL season, contact us today.
Overall Top 5 Performing Ads: Ranked by Search Engagement*
2021 NFL Kickoff, SEV** Ranking: MOVIES
2021 NFL Kickoff, SEV Ranking: AUTOS
2021 NFL Kickoff, SEV Ranking: RESTAURANTS
2021 Kickoff, SEV Ranking: FINANCE
2021 NFL Kickoff, SEV Ranking: OTHER
2021 NFL Kickoff, Creative SEV Ranking: OVERALL (excluding movies)