EVs Stole the Big Game Spotlight—Showing Auto Brands Are Committed to an All-Electric Future

Welcome to the era of electric vehicles—or at least the beginning of it. After a trickle of ads for all-electric cars in the 2010s, EVs dominated the auto ads in the 2022 Super Bowl. Six of the seven carmakers that advertised in the Big Game highlighted their electric offerings. And while only some of those models are already on the market, the slew of EV-centric ads proves that car brands see electric vehicles as the future of the industry, and they want consumers to know that they're committed to that future. Electric vehicle sales hit a record high in 2021's fourth quarter, with nearly 150,000 all-electric cars sold, according to Kelley Blue Book. That represents a 72% jump, year over year. EV market share also grew to 4.5%—another record. What ads can—and can't—fix Still, the transition to EVs won't happen overnight, regardless of how many $7 million ads showcase them during the Super Bowl. EVs accounted for fewer than 1% of the cars on the road in 2021—and many barriers to adoption remain. First of all, electric vehicles are new; they're expensive and are often seen (and marketed) as luxury cars. Secondly, while EV charging networks are growing, they are still too sparse to make an electric car possible for many folks in smaller towns across the country. Given that reality, a lot of what viewers saw during the Big Game was more about brand marketing than it was about influencing immediate sales, according to a spokesperson for Cox Automotive, parent company of Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader.com. After all, many of these cars aren't even available yet—and supply chain issues are continuing to complicate the car buying process for consumers. The EV decade Still, the ads show where the excitement is within the auto industry, he told Adweek. "We are in the EV decade," the Cox Automotive spokesperson said. "This is the decade that EV sales will rapidly outpace overall vehicle sales growth." Around Half of American Car Owners Are Open to Buying an Electric Vehicle That excitement is also opening more consumers up to the possibility of EVs. While Super Bowl ads might not be able to change the charging networks or price points of new all-electric cars, they can plant the idea of a future purchase. And many viewers did take to the internet to learn more about the EV brands that advertised during the game, according to Cars.com. The site saw an 80% increase in traffic to EV model pages during the game. Swedish EV brand Polestar takes the (traffic) cake Polestar was the big winner of the Super Bowl, according to Cars.com vp of national advertising, Julie Scott. The 5-year-old, Volvo-owned, design-forward EV brand has a steeper hill to climb to gain consumer familiarity in the U.S., she explained. The brand's spot, "No Compromises," did the trick. In Its First Super Bowl Ad, Swedish EV Brand Polestar Shows Viewers Everything It's Not The simple 30-second spot may not have snagged a winning spot on the USA Today ad meter or breached the top 10 ads by Adweek's metric, but it increased traffic to Polestar's dedicated pages on Cars.com by 580 times, Scott explained. And for a brand that had relatively low visibility outside of automotive circles, that's a huge success. "The winner is who gets the searches, not just the talk," said Scott. Beyond Polestar, Kia and BMW's ads also drove significant traffic on Cars.com, she said. Kia's robo pup spot drove a 921% lift in traffic to its brand pages on the site. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Salma Hayek Pinault as Zeus and Hera in BMW's Big Game spot drove a 781% increase to its Cars.com pages. Rounding out the brands that touted EVs during the game, Nissan saw a 120% bump for its star-studded spot. General Motors, which had both a corporate spot and a dedicated Chevrolet Silverado ad, garnered a 187% jump for all of its EV brands combined. The Silverado alone, which starred in a Sopranos-themed ad, saw a 58% increase.