Sony Pictures and Dell Were Last Week’s Top Spenders on Broadcast Placement of New Ads

Last week, advertisers were all about prime time—585 of them spent around $100 million on broadcast placement for new creative, about 13 percent of the $783 million advertisers spent on national broadcast placement overall, according to Kantar Media.

Nearly half of the spending on new ads was devoted to prime-time programming. Most of that (28 percent) went placement during reality TV and competition shows, including The Bachelorette ($2.1 million), Big Brother ($1.1 million) and America’s Got Talent ($1 million). But a sitcom edged out the competition for the top spot, with advertisers shoehorning $2.2 million for placement during The Big Bang Theory.

Sony Pictures was the week’s top spender, devoting $4.4 million of its $10.5 million overall broadcast placement budget (about 41 percent) to new trailers for The Emoji Movie, Baby Driver, The Dark Tower and Spider-Man: Homecoming. Of that, the company spent $43,000 on a new trailer promoting the Aug. 4 release of an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, $1.2 million to one promoting the June 28 release of Baby Driver, $1.3 million to a trailer promoting the July 28 release of The Emoji Movie and nearly $1.8 million on a new trailer for the June 28 release of summer blockbuster Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Speaking of Spider-Man, Peter Parker also made an appearance in ads for last week’s runner-up in spending on new ad placement. Dell spent $3.5 million placing a pair of ads for its new Dell Inspiron 15 7000 gaming laptop featuring the web-slinger, nearly all of its national broadcast placement budget. CBS’s The Big Bang Theory was the top recipient of that spending, bringing in about $167,000.

Dell edged out Macy’s, which spent around $3.4 million of its national broadcast placement budget of $4 million on a new spot promoting the chain’s Fourth of July sale—$295,000 went to placement during NBC’s This Is Us, more than any other program.

Dairy Queen devoted an even higher share of its total broadcast placement to new ads. The fast-food chain spent $3.3 million of its $3.5 million budget, or 93 percent, on its 30-second “Summer Blizzard Announcement” spot. ABC’s The Bachelorette was the top recipient of that spending, with $286,000.

PetSmart spent around $3.1 million to place a new 15-second ad, good for around 97 percent of its overall broadcast placement budget of approximately $3.2 million. The pet-supply chain went big on The Bachelorette, devoting $428,000 to placement during the ABC reality series.