Electric vehicle ads dominated as six of the seven auto brands that ran an advertisement during Super Bowl LVI featured electric vehicles, according to an analysis by online car shopping marketplace Cars.com published on Monday, February 14, as per CNBC.
General Motors' corporate brand advertised several electric vehicles on its Super Bowl spot, while Volvo's EV start-up Polestar featured its Polestar 2. Other brands pushing EVs in their ad spots included BMW, Toyota, GM's Chevy, Kia, and Nissan.
Traditional carmakers spent a huge chunk of their money promoting their products in the Super Bowl, with commercials between the Los Angeles Rams and the Cincinnati Bengals reportedly costing $7 million for 30 seconds.
Vox reported that automakers sure have the cash to burn, buying nearly 10 minutes of those time slots, which does not include their ads pre- and postgame. The bulk of those commercial minutes were allotted by car brands for EVs, a sign of where the auto industry is going.
One car brand was noticeably absent during commercials for one of the world's biggest sporting events, with Tesla once again spending $0 for advertising during the Super Bowl. That has been Tesla's strategy since it started selling electric cars nearly a decade ago, and it is a ploy that has worked brilliantly for them.
CEO Elon Musk has been vocal about his opposition to advertising, saying in a tweet back in 2019 that "Tesla does not advertise or pay for endorsements." Musk added that they use that money instead to make their product great.
Tesla has not needed Super Bowl commercials, or any other ads for that matter, as demand for its cars has consistently matched or exceeded the number of vehicles that it can build. According to Tesla's most recent financial report, the world's leading electric car maker had just six days' supply of vehicles to be sold on average during 2021 and only four days' worth of cars in the final quarter. That figure is down sharply from the 28 days of supply that Tesla recorded back in 2017, which was still a very low figure based on industry standards.
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However, some experts think Tesla may need to change its no-ads policy soon with the company facing more rivals in the EV market. Ed Williams, the vice president of growth and strategy at Kantar, a research firm that tracks advertising spending, echoed those sentiments, as per CNN.
He said that Tesla is "going to have to start advertising because of this growing competition. The question you can't answer right now is when. Tesla doesn't have to do anything right now. It might not be until late 2023."
According to Kantar, carmakers invested a massive $4 billion in television ads in just the first nine months of 2021, a 22 percent increase compared to its numbers during the same period the previous year.
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