Why the songs brands use in their Super Bowl spots matter
The choice to use licensed music over a custom track could impact brand recall, according to the sonic branding agency amp.
Published by: Alyssa Meyers | Marketing Brew on February 21st, 2024
Steph Chambers/Getty Images
There are several sonic standouts from this year’s Super Bowl: Usher singing his greatest hits at the halftime show, Travis Kelce shouting “Viva Las Vegas” into a microphone after the Kansas City Chiefs claimed their trophy, Arnold Schwarzenegger saying “neighbaaa” in the State Farm commercial, and, of course, the Temu jingle—over and over and over again.
Temu’s wasn’t the only musical ad this year. In fact, each of the 59 commercials in the Super Bowl used music in some capacity, according to the sonic branding agency amp—a change from the past couple of years, when some Big Game advertisers opted for the sound of silence (think Coinbase’s QR code from 2022), or at least just voices.
Licensed music, as opposed to bespoke tracks made specifically by or for a brand, has certain benefits in ad campaigns, but amp’s research suggests that it may not be worth the price in an already expensive ad environment.
Needle drop: About half (51%) of the music used in this year’s Super Bowl ads was licensed, according to amp. That share has remained fairly constant over the past three years. The share of Super Bowl ads using custom music, on the other hand, has ticked down, from 46% in 2022 to 34% in 2024.
Custom tracks are generally considered to be more affordable, but with brands spending big bucks to get celebrities and influencers in their campaigns, they may want their music to be culturally relevant, too, Rex Hirschhorn, a research and insights consultant for amp, told Marketing Brew.
“They're really investing in popular culture, and that includes licensed music,” Hirschhorn said.
Stock market: The percentage of Super Bowl advertisers using stock music increased from 0% in 2022 to 15% in 2024, according to amp, which defines stock music as music that’s licensed to a brand, but without the clout and cost of popular songs. It usually includes fades and loops, or “basic, repeated classical strings,” Hirschhorn said, like this year’s ad from Bass Pro Shops, for example.
Own it: According to amp, just one brand, State Farm, used an owned track, meaning a custom melody that’s associated with a brand based on repeated use. Dunkin’s “DunKings” or Temu’s jingle could become owned, but don’t yet meet amp’s definition because the brands only started using those songs during the Super Bowl. (Temu also created a custom song for its Super Bowl ad last year that has not been widely in use since, according to amp.)
Do you remember? The kind of music a brand chooses for its Super Bowl spot could impact recall, amp found.
The morning after the game, amp asked 150 survey participants to match six brands to the licensed tracks they used in their Super Bowl ads, according to Hirschhorn. The survey included beer brands Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob Ultra, and Miller Lite (which didn’t actually advertise in the broadcast, but did run an adjacent campaign), plus T-Mobile and Oreo, since those two brands have sonic logos.
In the majority of cases, respondents were not able to match the brand to its music:
30% correctly identified Budweiser based on a snippet of its campaign track
20% identified Michelob Ultra
18% identified Bud Light after hearing its song
14% matched Oreo to its music
And 8% correctly identified Miller Lite
T-Mobile was the exception: 84% identified the brand based on its ad music, a take on “Flashdance…What a Feeling,” with the lyrics changed to be about T-Mobile’s internet service sung by Zach Braff, Donald Faison, and Jason Momoa.
“Not a lot of people were associating the music, which begs the question: Was it worth it?” Bjorn Thorleifsson, amp’s head of strategy and research, said. The answer, he believes, is no, except in certain cases.
“I think for all of these [beer] brands…the music wasn’t an integral part of the storytelling. It was a background thing,” Thorleifsson said. “If it were to have been part of the storytelling, then probably more people would have made the connection.”
