NFL advertisers find success with pregame ads: report

Pregaming isn’t just for twentysomethings trying to save money on drinks before heading out on a Friday night. It’s for advertisers, too.

NFL pregame ads are 12% more likely to drive viewer engagement than the average prime-time ad, according to data from TV measurement company EDO gathered through Week 6 of this season. In-game ads are more likely to lead to engagement than pregame ads, but only by a margin of 4%, EDO found.

Both time slots are promising for advertisers, Laura Grover, EDO’s SVP and head of client solutions, told Marketing Brew, especially on Thanksgiving weekend, when many US households will tune their TVs to football games. But certain brands and categories are more likely to thrive in the football environment than others, EDO data indicates.

Outpizza the hut: Both in-game and pregame “NFL ads are proving incredibly effective” for pizza brands, especially Little Caesars and Pizza Hut, according to EDO.

• For the category in general, pregame NFL ads were 141% more likely to drive engagement than the prime-time average.
• That share was 133% for in-game ads.
• Little Caesars saw the highest engagement for NFL ads in the pizza category, followed by Pizza Hut.

Little Caesars could be benefiting from its NFL sponsorship and use of league marks, as well as its decision to advertise on streaming games and run athlete-centric ads, Grover said. The brand’s best performing ads, she added, feature San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle and Detroit Lions wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.

There’s another factor affecting pizza brands this season: “There’s a little bit less clutter,” Grover said. “Domino’s, historically, has been a really big spender in the NFL. They’ve pulled back a bit, so it’s given…Little Caesars and Pizza Hut the runway to really own the environment.”

Quick on the draw: Ads for quick-service restaurant brands that run during NFL programming have been outperforming the prime-time engagement average, too, generating even more engagement than they did last year, according to EDO.

• In-game ads have seen a 23% YoY increase in engagement, and pregame ads have seen a 4% increase, Grover said.
• Chick-fil-A, KFC, Taco Bell, and Arby’s are seeing the most engagement compared to the average QSR advertiser running NFL ads.

Bet on it: Sportsbooks have been betting on NFL ads this year, especially pregame ads. Brands in that category increased their airings of both pregame and in-game ads by 17% through Week 6 of this season compared to last, and they increased pregame airings by 27%, EDO found.

• That pregame boost has been “driven by DraftKings,” Grover said, a strategy that she said seems to be “working for them.”
• FanDuel, meanwhile, has had a strong showing of in-game ads and has also been the most active sports-betting brand in college football, she said.

“It’s really like they’re dominating the weekends a bit in live sports,” Grover said.

Turkey Day: Thanksgiving weekend typically marks a time of increased engagement with NFL ads compared to other weeks of the season, Grover said. Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video tends to result in strong performance for advertisers, and ads that ran during Prime Video’s Black Friday NFL game last year proved to be 78% more engaging than the Thanksgiving Day average for NFL ads that aired on TV networks, she said.

“If you think of all advertising in live sports, you have the NFL, which is kind of the top of that pyramid in terms of strength, and then you have Amazon Thursday Night Football, which is a step above that,” Grover said. “People are really captivated during those Amazon games…It’s harder to switch streaming platforms than it is to switch channels.”

This year’s Black Friday matchup features the Las Vegas Raiders playing the Kansas City Chiefs, and Grover said the game could draw even more viewers and engagement for advertisers if a certain notable Chiefs fan is in the crowd.

“We’ve seen the Taylor Swift effect for the Chiefs,” she said.