[aorloff]

This article uses a lot of numbers to make not very strong arguments.

Lets assume that as a media planner, you have the bag of money under your desk to plausibly be discussing buying a Superbowl spot. You are already spending millions of dollars on media every month, the question is - will the Superbowl spot yield more than other channels ?

For some small set of advertisers in this decision matrix, there's also the question of whether the media production cost is worth it (hello coinbase). For the vast majority of decision makers in this position, the media production budget is already getting spent.

Lets say the spot plus extra cost is $10m to use a nice round number.

You have an expectation of how many new users or website visitors your media budget typically delivers for $10m, because you spend that regularly (monthly, quarterly, it doesn't matter, but the point is that your spend has been growing).

So the decision is really really simple. Superbowl or the other places you've been shoving $10m. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but usually its like eh compared to the other places you've been shoving your $10m, underwhelming. Which is why you see justification pieces like this.

[baxtr]

As someone who is somewhat familiar with marketing but no expert, I always wondered how well attribution works.

It seems all guesswork to me. User journeys and decisions are not well enough understood to say, "If I spend $1 here, it’ll return $x".

Of course, marketing people come up with all kinds of calculations to show it’s possible.

That or I’m completely ignorant.

[aorloff]

> User journeys and decisions are not well enough understood to say

The power of math is its understanding of you, not your understanding of it.

[BoredPositron]

>> This article uses a lot of numbers to make not very strong arguments.

That's how marketing works.

[Razengan]

Sorry it's just f'ing bizarre we're talking about throwing TENS of millions for "advertising" instead of shit that actually benefits people and the world.

Meanwhile some people complain about space programs etc. wasting money.

[toolazytologin]

I don’t care about use of money that others spend freely. I do care about use of money that is forcibly confiscated from me.

(Not taking a position on space programs. Tax-funded programs deserve more inspection than privately-funded programs.)

[PunchTornado]

At least it's not Facebook or other online monster. When I read the piece I thought if it wasn't for superbowl that money would have went straight in the garbage.

[KurSix]

I think this is true if you evaluate it purely as a performance channel, but I suspect most Super Bowl buys aren't competing with search/social on the same axis

[aorloff]

Ah yes. The mythical brand value.

Let me give you the counterpoint that is increasingly hard to ignore :

You can reach the same users on search and social that the Superbowl will give you and if you can convert them more efficiently, where should your $10m go ?

The newfangled wisdom is that customers are at least as effective branding as the Superbowl