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Commercial advertisements already cost a lot of money to air during prime-time television. But, during the Super Bowl, the cost skyrockets, as companies will have their commercial put in front of the eyes of millions of live onlookers while competing with other parties trying to do the same.
In this article, we’ll outline five of the most expensive Super Bowl commercials ever, including their production cost and the price of filling the ad time slot.
As the cost of making Super Bowl ads increases steadily throughout the years, we have the fifth most expensive Super Bowl commercial aired in 2020, which features Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi pondering what life was like before Alexa.
The commercial runs for 90 seconds with comical snippets of what life would be like in colonial America before Alexa technology was invented. This commercial cost $16.8 million in total, which equates to $5.6 million per 30 seconds, which in modern TV streaming would likely cost at least $7 million for every 30 seconds of air time.
Google’s Loretta commercial is a heartfelt commercial aiming at bringing back the long-lived memories of people through Google. The commercial features mostly animations of Loretta’s husband using Google to reminisce on the times he had with his wife. He continues to ask Google for memories about his beloved wife (who no longer exists), to which Google remembers it all, spitting out all the important facts he shared over the years.
Overall, the commercial ran for 90 seconds, costing $16.8 million in total for the ad, with a rate of about $5.6 million for 30 seconds of air time, making it one of the most expensive Super Bowl commercials ever.
This commercial features Timothee Chalamet growing up in a bland household as Edward Scissorhands. The 2021-aired commercial showcases the daily challenges a man with knives for hands has to overcome, from slicing pineapples for his mom to driving hands-free in the all-new 2021 electric Cadillac LYRIQ with self-steering.
Throughout the years, the price of a Super Bowl ad slot increased significantly, with this commercial costing $5.5 million per 30 seconds of air time, leading the total 1-minute and 35-second commercial to cost over $22+ million.
This beloved General Motors commercial features the likes of Will Ferrell, Kenan Thompson and Awkwafina, taking the automobile EV war to the next level, specifically against Norway automobiles. Ferrell rallies the gang to unite with General Motors against the entirety of Norway’s electric motor vehicles.
The commercial’s main goal was to promote new General Motors electric cars comically, even though it’d cost them a similar amount to Cadillac’s ScissorHandsFree commercial, at a total price of around $22 million.
As of 2022, the most expensive Super Bowl commercial was born, as Scarlett Johansen and real-life husband Colin Jost ponder what Alexa would be capable of if she could read your mind.
All in all, the advertisement sums up the typical ups and downs of having AI technology in your household, specifically targeting how a device that could read your mind wouldn’t necessarily be for your benefit. The ad runs for 90 seconds on the dot, although not without costing an entire $6.5 million per 330 seconds of runtime for $26 million, making the Alexa Mind Reader commercial the outright most expensive to make of all time.
Liam has been a major sports fan and soccer player for over a decade, with a particular focus on major top-level soccer leagues, including the EPL, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and MLS. He has written numerous promotional articles for various top sportsbooks and continues to publish historical and factual sports articles covering the NFL, MLS, NHL, MLB, EPL and more.