Algonquin bought and aired a commercial during this year’s version of the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl is the biggest night of the NFL football season. According to the Toronto Star, 4.45 million Canadians watched the event this year.
“The AC Super Bowl placement was seen by approximately 235,000 viewers in Eastern Ontario,” said Alanna McDonell, Algonquin’s director of marketing.
“The ad has received more views than any other video we’ve posted. It performed very well on social and got good widespread coverage,” she added.
How much it cost the college remains a mystery, however. The college has an advertising terms and conditions agreement with Bell, which McDonell said prevents the college from disclosing the commercial’s cost to play during the Super Bowl on CTV.
She did say, however, that the price of the ad was not as significant as compared to the American networks.
As reported by Tom Huddleston Jr. on CNBC, CNBC charged $5.25 million US for a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl. That is approximately $175,000 a second.
However, those are not Canadian rates. Here, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission has banned American ads and only played Canadian ones during the Super Bowl, with a few exceptions.
Algonquin’s commercial was among them, and will have life well past the Super Bowl.
“As it is part of our brand campaign, the commercial was designed to have longevity and will be used on multiple mediums including TV, social media, digital screens, etc.,” said McDonell. “Initial social media metrics indicate that the ad had over 92,800 views on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and LinkedIn, the most of any video to date.”
She added that the aligning Facebook ad has had a reach of over 120,000 to date.
The response, so far, has been impressive, she said.
“Immediately after the ad aired, a flood of appreciation and excitement came in through email and social media. The marketing team and the many staff and students from around the college that contributed to the making of the commercial are extremely pleased with the outcome,” said McDonell.
The idea for the ad goes back a few years, an idea the college has been working on for a while. The copy was written by Alex Beshara, senior marketing and brand specialist at the college.
According to McDonell, they started working on the ad towards the end of October 2018 and it first aired was in February.
“When you use a commercial for brand building you’re looking long term. We are looking to build that sentiment that Algonquin College is a brand to be reckoned with,” said McDonell.
Super Bowl commercial purchases in Canada grabbed headlines last year when the CRTC announced the banning of American ads.
According to the Huffington Post Canada, “Bell is part of a group, which includes the National Football League (NFL) and unions representing Canadian creators and advertisers, citing a new research report that estimates the new ad rules cost the Canadian economy $158 million.”
The article went on to say “the report, which was prepared by a media-consulting company for Bell, claims the CRTC’s decision reduced audiences and advertising revenues, and moved advertising dollars out of the Canadian television system. Bell claims its advertising revenues dropped by $11 million and it lost 40 per cent of its audience for the football game.”
Check out the link to view the Algonquin ad that aired during the Super Bowl.