Making clutch plays
YouTube received a preview of what the NFL’s Week 1 Brazil game could do last year, when EDO found a matchup between the Green Bay Packers and eventual Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles created significant engagement for brands including Applebee’s, Little Caesars, and Subway.
Those streaming-exclusive moments and other big-ticket offerings like the Black Friday and Christmas games offer streamers hints of the league’s greater potential throughout the year. As Amazon discovered during the Wild Card round of the playoffs last year, however, those ads are an average of 68% more effective than the average TV spot, which means you’d need 81 regular TV ads to get the impact of even one Wild Card commercial.
That playoff power continues through the divisional rounds, where ads are 51% more effective than television, and the conference championships—where they’re 75% more valuable. An ad in each of those rounds is worth 111 to 218 average prime-time ads in terms of impact with consumers.
For entire segments of business, that makes a game-changing difference. Financial services brands, including American Express and SoFi, watch their ads become 27% more effective during the NFL regular season and 47% during the playoffs. That pattern repeats for food and beverage brands like M&M’s, Coca-Cola, and Gatorade (8% regular season, 34% playoffs); home and personal care, including Hims and Dior (13% and 14%); insurers such as Aflac and GEICO (19% and 56%); luxury automakers such as Polestar and Volvo (42% and 62%); and various restaurants, including Taco Bell and Arby’s (69% and 143%).
