The Super Bowl is the biggest US advertising event each year. How big?

In almost two decades, the average cost to run a 30-second Super Bowl ad increased over three times from $2.2M to $7M (🪄 inflation).

While some companies get strong returns from their ads (Coinbase QR Code), others don’t live long enough to tell the story.

Nearly a year ago, FTX ran this Super Bowl ad:

That same year, FTX blew up. It’s a pattern we’ve seen many times in history.

In 1984, Apple ran its iconic Macintosh ad. Steve Jobs was fired the following year, and Apple’s stock collapsed by nearly 50%.

In 2000, dot-com bubble darling Pets.com ran its Super Bowl ad. Six months later, it went bankrupt.

Crypto ads were DOA. Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) fell 62% in the year after its ad ran. Trading platform eToro canceled their SPAC plans to go public.

This year, we were given a small taste of AI ads.

• Privately traded AI-powered cloud communications company Dialpad (valued at $2.2B, ripe from going public) ran its “The Good AI” commercial.
• Google ran a “Fixed on Pixel” ad for its photo editing tools — which AI powers.

AI burst into the center stage last December. Any earlier and we would’ve likely seen many more AI ads in this year’s Super Bowl. Now, will the AI hype last long enough for 2024 to become the AI Bowl?

2024 Super Bowl prediction: Microsoft andGoogle take the AI battle to the Super Bowl. Plus, expect many more AI ads.