Volkswagen is one among three automakers anticipated to promote through the Tremendous Bowl in 2026.
Courtesy VW
DETROIT — Automakers are largely sitting on the promoting sidelines throughout this yr’s Tremendous Bowl amid uncertainty within the U.S. automotive business involving gross sales, tariffs and laws.
Carmakers — traditionally main consumers of advertisements through the large recreation — have been inconsistent with promoting through the Tremendous Bowl in recent times, with solely a handful placing out spots annually.
“It is positively been on the decline,” stated Sean Muller, CEO of advert information firm iSpot. “Autos are tightening their belts, and so they’re most likely pulling again on their budgets, and positively that is mirrored. I believe the Tremendous Bowl is an efficient barometer for all of this.”
Automakers accounted for 40% of Tremendous Bowl advert minutes in 2012, however dropped all the best way to 7% by 2025, in response to iSpot. Solely three automakers are anticipated to air advertisements, totaling roughly two minutes, throughout this yr’s recreation.
Tim Mahoney, a longtime automotive advertising govt, stated it is a balancing act on the subject of Tremendous Bowl promoting. He stated an organization has to have the appropriate product, advert marketing campaign, and, after all, capital to face out and get a return on its funding.
“Tremendous Bowl is only a huge platform, but it surely has gotten so costly,” Mahoney, who labored for GM, VW, Subaru and Porsche, advised CNBC. “There are generally attention-grabbing methods to navigate round it. … Adjacencies may be sensible.”
Throughout Mahoney’s tenure, Subaru grew to become the presenting sponsor of Animal Planet’s Pet Bowl and GM’s Chevrolet model “blacked out” TV screens simply forward of the Tremendous Bowl for an advert for its in-vehicle Wi-Fi in 2015.
Exterior of the Tremendous Bowl, automakers have elevated sports activities promoting and embraced extra streaming and regional promoting over nationwide attain, in response to iSpot.
“They are not slicing again in stay sports activities,” Muller stated, citing iSpot information that automakers now symbolize roughly 60% of spend on stay sports activities.
Autos out
Automotive executives who spoke to CNBC about not promoting throughout this yr’s Tremendous Bowl stated they had been deterred because of the price — $8 million on common for a 30-second advert — and felt their advert {dollars} can be higher spent elsewhere.
“We’re going to actually unfold our efforts, so cash and creativity, over a yr,” stated Stellantis Chief Advertising and marketing Officer Olivier Francois, who’s well-known for previous Tremendous Bowl advertisements. “There is no want for a peak or one thing in February.”
Stellantis, which is within the midst of an organization turnaround plan, will focus this yr on the 250th anniversary of the U.S. as its main advertising push along with extra business-oriented spending and a provocative social media marketing campaign for Jeep that includes a singing fish it launched this week.
Nissan Motor, which final marketed through the Tremendous Bowl in 2022, can also be experimenting this yr with parallel promoting.
The Japan-based automaker on Friday launched a comedic, high-energy “Huge Recreation” social media advert selling a chips-and-dip holder for its Nissan Rogue SUV. The “Nissan Dip Seat” advert stars chef and “The Bear” actor Matty Matheson selling the fictional product. It additionally promotes a sweepstakes to win one of many autos.
“One of many key issues for us is that we wished to sort of discover a means that was extra social in nature. It has been part of what our total technique has been this yr,” Nissan U.S. CMO Allyson Witherspoon advised CNBC.
Witherspoon declined to debate the price of the spot, however confirmed it was lower than it will have spent to air a standard Tremendous Bowl advert.
Others, corresponding to Honda Motor, will look to the Olympics as their main advert spending. Honda is sponsoring U.S. Olympic and Paralympic groups for the Winter Video games in Milan this yr in addition to on the 2028 Summer time Video games in Los Angeles.
“Tremendous Bowl is one second in time. The Olympics has so many verticals you may dip into and inform these tales,” stated Ed Beadle, who leads advertising for American Honda Motor.
The opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics befell on Friday in Milan. It additionally kicks off a month that Comcast’s NBCUniversal — which shall be airing the Olympics, Tremendous Bowl and NBA All-Star weekend — has coined “Legendary February.”
2026 advertisements
GM stays a wild card for this yr’s recreation, as the one automaker to not prerelease its advert. The Detroit automaker is utilizing the Tremendous Bowl to launch its Cadillac F1 workforce, together with revealing the look of its first livery automobile to a nationwide viewers.
The automaker final month confirmed a design prototype of the car in Detroit, together with on the metropolis’s auto present, but it surely has not launched any details about the industrial.
Toyota, the NFL’s official automotive accomplice, is predicted to air two 30-second advertisements centered on household connections.
One referred to as “Superhero Belt” reveals a grandson and a grandfather switching roles over time and telling one another to safe their seatbelts. The opposite has not been launched.
Volkswagen’s advert resurrects the automaker’s well-known Nineteen Nineties marketing campaign for a brand new era of shoppers, as a part of a advertising drive referred to as “The Nice Invitation: Drivers Wished.”
The brand new marketing campaign, together with a 30-second Tremendous Bowl spot, options most of the automaker’s autos being pushed round to Home of Ache’s 1992 hit “Bounce Round.”
— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report.
Disclosure: CNBC mother or father Versant is carrying NBC Sports activities-produced Olympic protection on its networks, together with USA Community and CNBC.
