Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Big brands paying as much as $8mn for advertising slots during this weekend’s Super Bowl will aim to win as big with television audiences as the two teams do on the sporting field. As well as generating record revenues, Sunday’s American football finale in New Orleans will showpiece a remarkable comeback for the traditional 30-second commercial.Marketers have long predicted the demise of the old-style TV ads that once dominated industry spending, as social media platforms fed attention-deficient audiences with images and bitesized ads lasting only a few seconds, with options to skip.But the longer format is experiencing an unlikely revival thanks to the growth of ad-supported tiers on Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime that has breathed new life into the TV ad industry and the creative process behind it. “Big Tech has done something remarkable,” said Matt Edwards, a partner at creative agency BigSmall. “It’s resurrected the traditional TV commercial and made it even harder to avoid.”Mark Read, chief executive of ad group WPP, said “television commercials are coming back in many ways with the launch of ads on Netflix and Amazon”, with the National Football League season decider set to provide the high-water mark for the format.Celebrities have been lined up to advertise the leading brands, including David Beckham, Chris Hemsworth and Shania Twain, as well as a reunion for When Harry Met Sally stars Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal in a commercial for Hellmann’s mayonnaise.Jimmy Spano, EVP at Dentsu Media Sports, said this year had been “one of the earliest” ad sell-outs in history for Fox, which is broadcasting the game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.CBS’s broadcast of last year’s Super Bowl generated roughly $650mn in ad revenue, with an average unit cost of about $7mn. “We’re hearing about a 10 per cent increase in cost per 30 [second] ad,” said Spano.Advertisers making their Super Bowl debuts include Häagen-Dazs, NerdWallet and Liquid Death. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, will also air its first Super Bowl ad, according to people with direct knowledge of its plans.Marketing chiefs say TV ads give brands a chance to express their creativity, noting how some of the best-remembered ads of the past 30 years were designed for TV sets.James Denton-Clark, global chief executive of the creative collective Forsman & Bodenfors, said “even the digital platform owners who know how to optimise their channels better than anyone else still use TV”.“They do this because TV — when you have a decent audience size — is still brilliant at the big emotional mass promise. The premium quality and human craft in TV helps brands find their place in culture.”Jeremy Carey, chief investment officer at Optimum Sports, said the TV ad spot would be part of a larger campaign planned across social media.“These things start off as a three-minute storyline cut down to a 120, to a 90 to a 60 [second ad]. Then, hey, can we cut it to 15? Are there certain things that we can do with five? So people are constantly playing with different formats.”A feature of the new streaming ads is that, unlike traditional TV services, audiences are not always given the option to switch channel or fast forward through the commercial.“Yes, you can skip ads on streaming — but only when a benevolent algorithm decrees it,” said Edwards at BigSmall agency. “In a twist of digital irony, the future of television is starting to look suspiciously like its past.”Indeed, with increasing numbers of people watching YouTube videos on TVs in their living rooms, brands are looking at it more like a traditional TV channel than a social media platform.Louise Johnson, global chief executive of Fuse, a sports marketing agency, said that “streaming platforms like YouTube are now also embracing longer, unskippable ad formats, mirroring traditional TV slots and allowing for more immersive storytelling”. Gabby Ludzker, chief executive of marketing agency Rapp, said this was all the more true in a data-driven age in which brands sought to build individual relationships with their customers.“It’s not about a one-night stand — 30 seconds then it’s over,” she said. “It’s the brands who use it as the start of a beautiful relationship . . . to carry on the conversation for many years to come that will succeed.“TV advertising is not dying, it’s transforming.”Additional reporting by George Hammond in San Francisco
