Hey Alexa, How Much Does a Super Bowl Commercial Cost?

Chelsea Kingston, Sports Editor

To celebrate the 52nd annual Super Bowl many companies created commercials to try and make lasting impression on the millions of people watching. These commercials use comedy and celebrities to grab the audience’s attention. Not only is it hard to create of a unique and creative commercial but the cost of commercials are extremely expensive. For a 30-second commercial, a company pays about $5 million. Amazon’s Alexa commercial was 90 seconds long and cost $15 million and that didn’t include how much the company paid the celebrities to be in the commercial. Though these commercials are very costly, they exceed around 100 million viewers.

As for 2018, there are many debate as to which commercial was the most memorable. The most talked about commercials were presented by Tide, Amazon’s Alexa, M&M and NFL. Tide hired David Harbour, who is a main character in the popular Netflix series “Stranger Things.” Harbour drew the attention of the audience and then continued to say that every commercial is a Tide because all the clean clothes are cleaned by Tide. Rebel Wilson, Cardi B, Gordon Ramsay and Anthony Hopkins featured in Amazon’s Alexa commercial.

Theses celebrities filled in for Alexa’s voice when she lost it and the new voices did the opposite of what the person asked for. The M&M commercial featured Danny DeVito in which he was a red M&M. The commercial is based around him being the luckiest candy in the world because nobody wanted to eat him until he gets hit by a garbage truck. For New York Giants fans, the NFL presented a commercial starring Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr. These fan-favorite players celebrate a touchdown in training by dancing to “(I Had) The Time of My Life.” Overall, the commercials for Super Bowl LII didn’t disappoint.

Critics say that companies played it safe this year because they only made silly or sincere commercials. Unlike last year, 84 Lumber had a commercial about immigration but companies this year used humorous ads instead. According to Kim Whitler, a marketing professor at the University of Virginia, people want “political-free entertainment”. Companies stayed away from politics and other current events to avoid offending anyone. Besides the few critics, people across the nation enjoyed these witty commercials.

As for the game, Super Bowl LII ended in a 41-33 win for the Philadelphia Eagles over the New England Patriots. It was the Eagles first Super Bowl victory.