Ford and General Motors Won’t Be Airing Any Commercials for the NFL’s 2024 Big Game LVIII

When it comes to commercials, the only time we really ever willingly pay attention is during the biggest night of football every year. However, huge automakers like General Motors and Ford will be benching part of their marketing budget for next year’s game, according to a report from Ad Age.

General Motors did not disclose any specific reason as to why the company won’t be advertising during a sporting event as big as this, other than that the company “continually evaluates our media strategies to ensure they align with or business priorities.”

General Motors & Ford Sitting Out The Big Game

However, Ford CEO Jim Farley mentioned back in 2022 that they have pursued other advertising ventures and customer experiences with better results than pouring a huge lump sum of their marketing resources into a single television spot. “I’m not convinced we need public advertising,” Farley says in Ford Authority. “Well, see, our model’s messed up. We spend $600 or $700 on a vehicle to promote it, and we spend nothing post-warranty on the customer experience.”

“It’d be much better if we tried to develop an ecosystem where 100 percent came back, and we gave them experiences, and that’s our marketing,” Farley added. “You buy Ford Model E and after a year we’re going to give you a complete detail of the vehicle, check all your software’s up to date. You get a complete birthday for your vehicle. We should be doing stuff like that instead of doing Super Bowl ads. If you see a company doing … if you ever see Ford Motor Company doing a Super Bowl ad on our electric vehicle, sell the stock.”

Is The Investment Worth It?

For a 30-second commercial spot during the NFL’s big game, it costs approximately $7 million, according to Forbes. GM filmed a 60-second spot during the 2023 game featuring Will Farrell driving a GMC Sierra EV Denali through a post-apocalyptic hoarde of zombies. So they had to account for the advertising spot, the cost to film the commercial, hire talent, production crew, editors, etc. So GM may have found out that pouring at least $14 million into a 60-second television commercial may not have been worth the investment.

It should also be noted that many of the General Motors ads were about pushing the company’s growing electric inventory. In 2022, GM managed to revive Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers films back into the driver’s seat by hiring Mike Myers, Rob Lowe, Seth Green, and Mindy Sterling to bring their beloved characters back into the spotlight. But considering that the auto industry’s push for an electric revolution isn’t going as planned, automakers may be reserving their marketing budgets for other more profitable pursuits.