Author: Michael Bürgi

The Super Bowl may be over, and the Winter Olympics already underway, but sports continues to be the red-hot domain in media. Alright, the other hot domain — right after AI. 

The agency holding companies seemingly understand the magnitude of what’s happening in sports and are marshaling their teams to take full advantage of that heat. Publicis Groupe is the latest to take the field, so to speak, having formed Influential Sports, a new unit that taps into the creator and influencer marketplace to help brands connect with sports fans on a deeper level. It’s an offshoot of Publicis Sports, which is run by Suzy Deering, the group’s CEO. 

Publicis is putting to use its acquisition of creator agency Influential in 2024, but is also tapping into its data powerhouse, Epsilon, to marry data resources to its creator-led marketing. The effort will tap into creators, athletes, NIL talent, and sports-culture influencers, while Publicis Sports provides intelligence on fan bases, guides on sponsorships and then activates on them, using Epsilon data to help get to more deterministic data power of Epsilon. 

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Now that the washing up’s done and the snacking detritus has been swept off the floor, it’s time to consider the real winners and losers of this year’s Super Bowl – the brands. (The Seattle Seahawks may have won the actual game, but it was far from an offensive juggernaut – you have to really like punts to have gotten something out of it.)

The creative strategies employed by advertisers, as well as the media plans they relied upon to multiply the effect of their $8 million dollar spots, offer hints about how advertisers aim to reach audiences throughout the rest of the year.

With mutli-million dollar price tags and a highly polarized cultural climate, brands found themselves walking a tight rope at this year’s Big Game. To avoid alienating consumers, brands intentionally avoided saying anything that might sound remotely political, preferring to stay in the safety zone.

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