Dive Brief:
-
Adults in this country will fork out $81.17 each — or a total of $15.3 billion nationwide — in connection with Sunday's Super Bowl LII, according to an annual survey released Jan. 25 by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. That's up 8.5% from the $14.1 billion spent last year.
-
The 82% of people who said they will be buying food and beverages for the Feb. 4 game is the highest percentage ever found during the annual survey. Those aged 25-34 planned to spend the most money — $118.43 on average. The survey of 7,277 people was done in January.
-
Super Bowl parties are considered nearly as critical to this tradition as the game, and consumers stock up on food and beverage products to celebrate the occasion each year. In 2016, about $82 million went for chicken wings, $80 million on salads, $58 million on sandwiches and $13 million on veggie trays.
Dive Insight:
PepsiCo will loom large during this year's game. The soda giant is again sponsoring the Super Bowl's half-time show, as well as debuting a new ad featuring Cindy Crawford, who also starred in a famous Pepsi ad during the game in 1992. The new spot will feature the company's Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Zero Sugar products.
Chicken wings will again be a big focus of the game menu, with the annual report from the National Chicken Council projecting football fans will eat an all-time high of 1.35 billion of them during Super Bowl weekend. That number is up from 2017 by about 1.5%, or 20 million chicken wings, the council reported.
Plenty of game watchers will head to the grocery store to get Super Bowl foods and beverages, but with the continued rise of online grocery, a growing number of shoppers will purchase their party snacks online. More and more consumers are turning to their mobile devices to make their grocery purchases, thanks to a surge of retailer apps, while many rely on services like Wal-Mart's click and collect for their groceries.
And, while chowing down on all those chicken wings, game watchers might be startled to see a Super Bowl ad from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals featuring actor James Cromwell hearing a "confession" from a chicken marketing executive talking about the "humane meat," "free range" and other marketing campaigns he's crafted and then telling him there is no penance for what he's done. The tagline: "Go vegan."