Marketing Briefing: Why some brands are looking to the metaverse, NFTs to hack their way into the Super Bowl this year

For years, savvy marketers have tried to get consumers’ attention during the Super Bowl without paying the hefty cost of a 30-second spot. That’s no different this year — why pay $6.5 million for a 30-second ad if you can get people to pay attention to your brand for a fraction of that cost — as brands are looking to use the metaverse, NFTs and more to crash the Big Game.

That brands like Miller Lite (the beer maker is using a metaverse bar to get around Anheuser-Busch’s category hold on Big Game sponsorship), Animal Planet (the network is giving out NFTs for the Puppy Bowl) and Frank’s Hot Sauce (the CPG brand is touting an “edible” NFT for the Super Bowl), among others, are leaning on the metaverse and NFTs to hack their way into Big Game advertising without paying the cost of a Super Bowl spot isn’t surprising.

Marketers and agency execs say that Super Bowl hacks are “often centered around some new technology or platform, where eyeballs aren’t costing a huge premium, and the brand gets PR and credit for being a first mover,” said Bob Rayburn, executive creative director at Innocean USA.

That being said, while these brands will likely get credit for bringing metaverse and NFT experimentation to shoulder Super Bowl activations, marketers and agency execs caution that leaning on new technology or platforms to get people to pay attention can be risky. Without a tie to the brand’s purpose or a reward of some kind for that attention, the move can be seen as nothing more than an attention grabbing gimmick hopping on the latest trend.