BMW is headed to the 2024 Super Bowl after sitting out this year’s game.
The luxury auto brand will run a 60-second spot in the first half from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, BMW of North America Chief Marketing Officer Marcus Casey confirmed to Ad Age, an affiliate of Automotive News.
The ad will include an electric vehicle and have a celebrity component, said Casey, who declined to disclose further details. That was the same formula BMW used in 2022, when it returned to the game for the first time since 2015. The ad, also from Goodby, starred Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Zeus, the god of the sky in Greek mythology, and Salma Hayek Pinault as Zeus’ wife Hera, depicting the couple cruising in an electric BMW iX.
“We’re really excited to be doing it again next year after 2022,” Casey said. “It was a very successful endeavor … all the metrics that we have seen and looked at just showed a huge impact for us.”
Of course, the hype surrounding EVs has faded a bit since 2022, when a host of brands advertised EVs in the game, including Kia, General Motors, Nissan and Polestar. While more EVs have flooded the market since then, more consumers cite the price of the vehicles as a top concern. A recent report from S&P Global Mobility revealed that about two-thirds of S&P’s respondents said they were open to purchasing an EV—a 19-percentage point drop from 2021.
But BMW, whose luxury positioning caters to buyers with more disposable income than most, has been able to sustain EV momentum.
Globally, BMW Group — which includes BMW, Mini and Rolls Royce — reported that in the third quarter, battery-electric vehicles accounted for 15.1 percent of total sales, besting its 15 percent target for the full year. In the U.S., the BMW brand sold 31,043 EVs through the third quarter, accounting for more than 12 percent of total sales volume. The EV sales helped BWW stay ahead of German rival Mercedes-Benz for second place in the U.S. luxury brand race (Tesla has a big lead), according to Automotive News.
Casey said that the top question BMW gets around EVs from consumers is “around charging.”
“So that’s a main focus for us to get those answers. But I think we’re setting ourselves apart there a bit from others [with] the quality that we offer and the driving experience. So we’re still full steam ahead,” he said.
BMW is the first automaker to confirm an ad buy in the Feb. 11 game on CBS. GM confirmed this week that it will sit out the Bowl, ending a four-year streak.
BMW’s buy comes as it is in the midst of an agency review for creative, social media, digital and CRM. Goodby is the creative incumbent. In October, BMW announced it had hired Omnicom for media, using a bespoke unit led by its Critical Mass agency. The media incumbent was Interpublic’s UM. UM handled the Super Bowl buy because Omnicom’s contract does not start until Jan. 1.