Automakers largely sit out 2026 Super Bowl advertising amid industry uncertainty

DETROIT — Automakers are largely sitting on the advertising sidelines throughout this yr’s Super Bowl amid uncertainty within the U.S. automotive industry involving gross sales, tariffs and laws.

Carmakers — traditionally main consumers of advertisements through the huge recreation — have been inconsistent with advertising through the Super Bowl in recent times, with solely a handful placing out spots annually.

“It is undoubtedly been on the decline,” mentioned Sean Muller, CEO of advert information firm iSpot. “Autos are tightening their belts, they usually’re most likely pulling again on their budgets, and positively that is mirrored. I feel the Super Bowl is an effective barometer for all of this.”

Automakers accounted for 40% of Super Bowl advert minutes in 2012, however dropped all the way in which to 7% by 2025, based on iSpot. Solely three automakers are anticipated to air advertisements, totaling roughly two minutes, throughout this yr’s recreation.

Tim Mahoney, a longtime automotive advertising govt, mentioned it is a balancing act relating to Super Bowl advertising. He mentioned an organization has to have the correct product, advert marketing campaign, and, after all, capital to face out and get a return on its funding.

“Super Bowl is only a huge platform, however it has gotten so costly,” Mahoney, who labored for GM, VW, Subaru and Porsche, informed CNBC. “There are typically fascinating methods to navigate round it. … Adjacencies could be sensible.”

Throughout Mahoney’s tenure, Subaru grew to become the presenting sponsor of Animal Planet’s Pet Bowl and GM’s Chevrolet model “blacked out” TV screens simply forward of the Super Bowl for an advert for its in-vehicle Wi-Fi in 2015.

Outdoors of the Super Bowl, automakers have elevated sports activities advertising and embraced extra streaming and regional advertising over nationwide attain, based on iSpot.

“They are not slicing again in dwell sports activities,” Muller mentioned, citing iSpot information that automakers now signify roughly 60% of spend on dwell sports activities.

Automotive executives who spoke to CNBC about not advertising throughout this yr’s Super Bowl mentioned they have been deterred as a result of price — $8 million on common for a 30-second advert — and felt their advert {dollars} can be higher spent elsewhere.

“We’re going to actually unfold our efforts, so cash and creativity, over a yr,” mentioned Stellantis Chief Advertising Officer Olivier Francois, who’s well-known for previous Super Bowl advertisements. “There isn’t any want for a peak or one thing in February.”

Stellantis, which is within the midst of an organization turnaround plan, will focus this yr on the 250th anniversary of the U.S. as its main advertising push along with extra business-oriented spending and a provocative social media marketing campaign for Jeep that includes a singing fish it launched this week.

Nissan Motor, which final marketed through the Super Bowl in 2022, can be experimenting this yr with parallel advertising.

The Japan-based automaker on Friday launched a comedic, high-energy “Massive Recreation” social media advert selling a chips-and-dip holder for its Nissan Rogue SUV. The “Nissan Dip Seat” advert stars chef and “The Bear” actor Matty Matheson selling the fictional product. It additionally promotes a sweepstakes to win one of many autos.

“One of many key issues for us is that we needed to sort of discover a manner that was extra social in nature. It has been part of what our general technique has been this yr,” Nissan U.S. CMO Allyson Witherspoon informed CNBC.

Witherspoon declined to debate the price of the spot, however confirmed it was lower than it might have spent to air a conventional Super Bowl advert.

Others, resembling Honda Motor, will look to the Olympics as their main advert spending. Honda is sponsoring U.S. Olympic and Paralympic groups for the Winter Video games in Milan this yr in addition to on the 2028 Summer time Video games in Los Angeles.

“Super Bowl is one second in time. The Olympics has so many verticals you possibly can dip into and inform these tales,” mentioned Ed Beadle, who leads advertising for American Honda Motor.

The opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics befell on Friday in Milan. It additionally kicks off a month that Comcast’s NBCUniversal — which will probably be airing the Olympics, Super Bowl and NBA All-Star weekend — has coined “Legendary February.”

GM stays a wild card for this yr’s recreation, as the one automaker to not prerelease its advert. The Detroit automaker is utilizing the Super Bowl to launch its Cadillac F1 group, together with revealing the look of its first livery automotive to a nationwide viewers.

The automaker final month confirmed a design prototype of the car in Detroit, together with on the metropolis’s auto present, however it has not launched any details about the industrial.

Toyota, the NFL’s official automotive companion, is predicted to air two 30-second advertisements targeted on household connections.

One referred to as “Superhero Belt” exhibits a grandson and a grandfather switching roles over time and telling one another to safe their seatbelts. The opposite has not been launched.

Volkswagen’s advert resurrects the automaker’s well-known Nineties marketing campaign for a brand new era of shoppers, as a part of a advertising drive referred to as “The Nice Invitation: Drivers Wished.”

The brand new marketing campaign, together with a 30-second Super Bowl spot, options lots of the automaker’s autos being pushed round to Home of Ache’s 1992 hit “Bounce Round.”

— CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report.

Disclosure: CNBC mother or father Versant is carrying NBC Sports activities-produced Olympic protection on its networks, together with USA Community and CNBC.