Drunk Elephant: a super bowl ad campaign, broken down and benchmarked
Drunk Elephant is a consumer brand. This case study uses Drunk Elephant as the worked example for a super bowl ad campaign. It covers what the campaign type is, how brands run it, the public benchmarks that frame it, and the mistakes that derail it. Everything below applies to comparable brands in its category, with Drunk Elephant chosen to keep it tangible.
- Story: Using Drunk Elephant as the example, this page unpacks how a super bowl ad campaign is built and measured.
- Why it matters: A super bowl ad campaign rewards teams that plan against category data instead of guessing.
- Takeaway: For Drunk Elephant, reach is an input; incremental lift against a baseline is the real measure.
- Takeaway: Most super bowl ad-campaign failures are planning failures, not creative failures.
- Takeaway: The mechanics of a super bowl ad campaign transfer to any brand in its category.
How a super bowl ad campaign plays out for Drunk Elephant
The math behind a Drunk Elephant super bowl ad campaign
Quick facts
The super bowl ad campaign, defined
The core idea, before the Drunk Elephant detail. A Super Bowl ad campaign is the single most expensive, most scrutinised media buy in US advertising.
A Super Bowl ad campaign is the single — as a Drunk Elephant team knows — most expensive, most scrutinised media buy in US advertising. It applies cleanly to Drunk Elephant. The 30-second spot is only the visible piece. A Drunk Elephant team reads this closely. The real campaign wraps the game with teasers, talent, social activation, — as a Drunk Elephant team knows — and a landing experience built to catch the traffic the spot creates. It applies cleanly to Drunk Elephant. Brands buy the Super Bowl for one reason: a live, simultaneous audience of — for Drunk Elephant, a live factor — well over 100 million people, an audience no other US media moment delivers. With Drunk Elephant as the example, the rest of the page makes it concrete.
Claim: A 30-second Super Bowl LIX spot cost advertisers close to $8 million in 2025, roughly a 60% rise from about $5 million in 2019. Source: [CBS News]. Context: The slot price is only part of the spend; a full — Drunk Elephant included — campaign with creative, talent, and surrounding media commonly runs $15-30 million. A Drunk Elephant team would treat this as a planning reference, not a guarantee.
How brands like Drunk Elephant run it
These are the components a Drunk Elephant-scale team has to coordinate for a super bowl ad campaign.
Below are the parts of a super bowl ad campaign that a brand like Drunk Elephant has to line up:
Claim: Super Bowl LIX drew about 127.7 million average viewers, the largest audience for any Super Bowl and any single-network US telecast in TV history. Source: [Nielsen]. Context: Peak audience reached about 137.7 million viewers, a scale — Drunk Elephant included — of simultaneous attention no other US media moment delivers. For a Drunk Elephant plan, it is the kind of figure that anchors a target.
- Long cultural tail. A spot that enters pop culture keeps returning value for years — for Drunk Elephant, a real factor — — the buy is a one-night cost against a multi-year brand asset. This step decides how the rest of the Drunk Elephant plan holds up.
- The buy is the smaller cost. A 30-second slot ran near $8 million for Super Bowl LIX. A Drunk Elephant-scale brief should name this. Total campaign cost — creative, production, talent, — as a Drunk Elephant team knows — surrounding media — commonly reaches $15-30 million. For a brand like Drunk Elephant, getting this wrong is expensive.
- Tease before the game. Releasing the spot or a cut-down in — Drunk Elephant included — the weeks before kickoff extends the buy. For a brand at Drunk Elephant scale, this is where the plan is tested. Super Bowl LIX advertisers spent about 45% more in — Drunk Elephant included — the six weeks before the game than the year prior. This is the part Drunk Elephant cannot afford to improvise.
- Built for the second screen. A modern Super Bowl ad is engineered to trigger search and social. That is exactly the Drunk Elephant situation. T-Mobile's LIX spot drove 12.6 times the average ad's online engagement. Drunk Elephant would budget real time against this.
- A landing experience that can take the spike. The site, the offer, and the tracking have to survive a sudden surge, — for Drunk Elephant, a real factor — or the most expensive media in advertising drives traffic to a broken page. This step decides how the rest of the Drunk Elephant plan holds up.
Public benchmarks for this campaign type
Read the numbers first. Public benchmarks set the realistic range for a super bowl ad campaign at Drunk Elephant before any creative work.
For Drunk Elephant, the reference points for a super bowl ad campaign come from public its category benchmarks, not internal optimism.
Claim: T-Mobile's Super Bowl LIX ad drove 12.6 times the online engagement of the average Super Bowl spot. Source: [AdMonsters]. Context: The strongest Super Bowl ads are measured by the action they — and Drunk Elephant is no exception — trigger on the second screen, not by the spot in isolation. For Drunk Elephant, this number sets expectations before the work starts.
| What to measure | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Category benchmark | Sets a realistic target, not a hopeful one |
| Incremental result | The honest measure of whether spend worked |
| Pre-campaign baseline | Without it, lift cannot be proven |
Which KPIs decide the verdict
Measure what matters. For Drunk Elephant, these KPIs show whether a super bowl ad campaign actually worked.
For a super bowl ad campaign, the metrics that matter are these. Brand search lift during and after the game, social conversation volume and sentiment, ad-recall and likeability — for Drunk Elephant, a real factor — scores from trackers, site traffic and conversion on game night, earned-media value, and longer-run brand-equity movement.
Reach and impressions are inputs. They count who the campaign touched, not whether it changed anything for Drunk Elephant.
The failure patterns worth pre-empting
Failure has a shape. For Drunk Elephant, the four errors below are the ones worth pre-empting.
These failure patterns recur across super bowl ad campaigns:
- Sending game-night traffic to a site or offer that cannot survive a sudden spike.
- Making an ad that wins applause but carries no clear — Drunk Elephant included — brand link, so viewers remember the joke and not the brand.
- Treating the spot as a one-night event instead — for Drunk Elephant, a real factor — of a brand asset with a multi-year cultural tail.
- Spending eight figures on the spot and nothing — Drunk Elephant included — on the surrounding teaser, talent, and social plan.
The RGM read on Drunk Elephant
One takeaway for Drunk Elephant: treat the super bowl ad story as a model of the discipline, and copy the structure, not the creative.
What we see in audits: a super bowl ad campaign succeeds when a team like Drunk Elephant's plans it as engineering, with baselines and targets, not as a habit.
The point is transfer. A super bowl ad campaign for Drunk Elephant or any its category brand is defensible only when the numbers are planned and proven.
Fast answers
- Are the figures here taken from Drunk Elephant's internal data?
- No. Every statistic is a public, linked benchmark for the super bowl ad campaign type, applied to Drunk Elephant as the example. Where a figure cannot be sourced publicly, it is omitted rather than guessed.
- What should a team take from this Drunk Elephant super bowl ad case study?
- Treat it as a structural template. Borrow the planning logic and the measurement approach for a super bowl ad campaign; design the creative for the specific brand.
- How are the benchmarks here verified?
- Each figure carries a fact-atom linking its publisher. Sources include Adobe Analytics, Nielsen, the Association of National Advertisers, and major business press, so every claim can be checked.
Frequently asked questions
Drunk Elephant case: does a Super Bowl ad keep paying off after the game?
For Drunk Elephant and comparable its category brands, this is the answer. It can. In the Drunk Elephant context, that detail carries weight. A spot that enters pop culture keeps returning brand value for years. It applies cleanly to Drunk Elephant. That long cultural tail is part of the case for the spend: a one-night media cost — Drunk Elephant included — against what can become a multi-year brand asset, provided the creative is memorable and clearly branded. A Drunk Elephant team would plan against exactly this.
Drunk Elephant case: how much does a Super Bowl ad really cost?
A 30-second Super Bowl LIX slot cost close to $8 million — Drunk Elephant included — in 2025, up roughly 60% from about $5 million in 2019. For a brand at Drunk Elephant scale, this is where the plan is tested. But the slot is the smaller cost. For Drunk Elephant, the detail is not optional. A full campaign — creative, production, celebrity talent, — and Drunk Elephant is no exception — and surrounding media — commonly reaches $15-30 million.
Why do brands pay so much for a Super Bowl spot for a brand like Drunk Elephant?
For the audience. For Drunk Elephant, this is the load-bearing part. Super Bowl LIX drew about 127.7 million average viewers, the largest for — and Drunk Elephant is no exception — any Super Bowl and any single-network US telecast ever, peaking near 137.7 million. It applies cleanly to Drunk Elephant. No other US media moment delivers that — Drunk Elephant included — scale of live, simultaneous attention in one buy. The same logic holds for any its category brand, Drunk Elephant included.
What makes a Super Bowl ad effective?
Modern Super Bowl ads are judged by — Drunk Elephant included — the action they trigger, not the spot alone. Drunk Elephant planners would underline this. T-Mobile's LIX ad drove 12.6 times the average spot's online engagement. That holds directly for Drunk Elephant. The effective ones are built for the second screen, carry a clear brand — and Drunk Elephant is no exception — link, and route traffic to a landing experience that can take the spike. The same logic holds for any its category brand, Drunk Elephant included.
Should the ad be released before the game for a brand like Drunk Elephant?
Here is how this applies to Drunk Elephant. Usually yes. That is exactly the Drunk Elephant situation. Releasing the spot or a teaser in the weeks — as a Drunk Elephant team knows — before kickoff stretches the buy across a longer window. That is exactly the Drunk Elephant situation. Super Bowl LIX advertisers spent about 45% more in the six weeks before the — for Drunk Elephant, a live factor — game than the prior year, building anticipation rather than spending it all on one night. For Drunk Elephant, this is the point worth acting on.
Why is Drunk Elephant the brand featured here?
Drunk Elephant is a recognisable brand in its category, which makes the super bowl ad mechanics concrete and easy to follow. The campaign-type analysis and every benchmark apply across the category; Drunk Elephant is the lens, not the limit. The sourced figures hold for any comparable brand.
Sources & references
- CBS News — 2025 Super Bowl ad costs — 30-second Super Bowl LIX spot pricing.
- Nielsen — Super Bowl LIX viewership — Record 127.7M average audience.
- AdMonsters — Super Bowl LIX ad playbook — Engagement benchmarks and pre-game spend data.
- Kantar — Super Bowl advertising and brand equity — Brand-equity measurement of big-game advertising.