Grammy Ads

#MondayMusings

If the Super Bowl is the "Big Game" then are the Grammy's the "Big Show"?

While early estimates are reporting CBS' telecast of the 61st annual Grammy Awards were down from 2018, CBS was still the big winner of the night raking in $1 million per 30 seconds of ad time, and that's only one week after airing the Super Bowl and raking in $5 million per 30 second spot.

All the press I've read today doesn't put into context however that a "down" year for Grammy viewership was still a 12.8 primetime rating, making it the highest watch telecast of the week. To put that into perspective, over 16 million people watched CBS just on Sunday night, the second most watched was ABC with only 3.8 million viewers. Which is why live TV events like sports, award shows, reality competition finales, etc. will continue to be the most in-demand platform for commercials.

As a marketer, it's exciting to watch as award shows are starting to get the same type of coverage that only Super Bowl ads once received. For example, before the telecast, Ad Age shared an early preview of the ads airing during the Grammy's (the first time I've ever seen that outside the Super Bowl): https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/early-ads-running-grammys/316595/

The biggest takeaway of the night for me was how Childish Gambino (aka Donald Glover) received more headlines over dissing that Grammy's by refusing to perform and show-up, while winning song and album of the year, to instead star in a Google commercial that launched during the telecast: https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/ct-ent-grammys-childish-gambino-donald-glover-google-20190210-story.html.