C2V Feb 2022 Notes From The Trenches
Welcome friends! We have a great new In The Trenches video spot to feature this month — our chat with C2V founders Rashid Galadanci (Driver Technologies) and Ian White (Koffie Labs) on all things InsurTech, as well as a new SuperPowers podcast.
But first, let’s talk Super Bowl!
In addition to being as uniquely all-caps AMERICAN as it gets (super-human athletes, lunatic fans, excessive violence, and even more excessive consumerism), the Super Bowl is exceptionally unique as the only broadcast where the ads aren’t just there because of the audience, a huge portion of the audience is there because of the ads.
In fact, Super Bowl ads may have become as anticipated as the game itself at this point, with both the quality and cost of the ads a regular part of the national conversation before and after the game.
The quality side of this conversation is well covered (you’ll reach the end of the internet before you reach the last page of search results for “best Super Bowl ads”), so with all due respect to the good people at E-Trade (still the undisputed SB ad champs), we thought we’d give some love to the cost side.
In the spirit of the big game, let’s start with a sports talk-radio style teaser…
At an eye-popping $6.5 million per 30-second spot, almost 20x that of the most expensive prime time TV slot, are Super Bowl ads… underpriced?
(Not gonna lie, that was fun)
The Viewership Difference is Massive
This year’s average audience was estimated at around 100mm. By contrast, the top primetime show in 2021, NCIS, averaged 12.7mm viewers per episode.
The Super Bowl is (Apparently) Immune to Disruption
The TV landscape has changed dramatically over the past 25 years, first with cable (and its hundreds of channels), then with the rise of streaming. The resulting growth in TV content has dramatically outpaced the growth in viewers, devaluing even the most popular shows.
The 8.4% audience share of NCIS wouldn’t have cracked the top 30 in 1997 and was less than a third of #1 Seinfeld’s 25.8% share that year. Even other high-profile live sports are declining, though less quickly. Over the same period, World Series and NBA Finals audience shares are off more than 30%.
Not the Super Bowl, though. Audience share is actually up a few percent since 1997 and has generally hovered around 70% for the past decade.
The Ads Are Part of the Show
We haven’t evaluated any of the new tech out there for tracking attention to ads, but given that the ads themselves are a key part of the experience, it seems safe to assume that these stats are plausible:
Attention rate for 2022 Super Bowl ads was 36% higher than for an average broadcast
Attention rate for ads was higher than attention rate for the game, for both male and female viewers (and this was apparently true for the prior two Super Bowls as well)
Bottom line
Despite increasing 7% a year over the past 25 years (3x overall inflation), Super Bowl ads are probably still a bargain, as viewers and attention to ads has increased while eyeballs on pretty much all other programming has fallen off a cliff.
In other words, get your checkbooks ready for next February.
Good Times With Chris & Matt
New In The trenches Episode
The commercial trucking insurance space was one of the most broken, if not the most broken old economy sectors we’ve seen. Today, in the trenches, we invited Ian White, Co-Founder of Koffie Labs, and Rashid Galadanci, Founder of Driver Technologies, to talk about what’s happening in the insurance tech sector.
Superpowers Podcast: Mick Batyske - Flywheel Connections
How does a DJ who learned how to mix in his dorm room turn into an investor, speaker, advisor, and business owner? Mick Batyske talks about what it has been like to leverage his relationships with titans of industry, through his music, and build his own empire.
Please subscribe and share the show with a friend.
C2V By The Numbers
Here are this month’s interesting and fun stats across our venture practice.
Portfolio Spotlight
“The 2021 Inc. 5000 list feels like one of the most important rosters of companies ever compiled,” says Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief of Inc. “Building one of the fastest-growing companies in America in any year is a remarkable achievement. Building one in the crisis we’ve lived through is just plain amazing. This kind of accomplishment comes with hard work, smart pivots, great leadership, and the help of a whole lot of people.”
Additional News for Boostr
Boostr Introduces Net Advertising Revenue Retention to Help Publishers Grow Enterprise Value and Combat Churn. Read more.
After signing a software license agreement, Kambr is pleased to announce that Lynx Air (Lynx), Canada’s new ultra-affordable airline, is entrusting Kambr’s Eddy platform with its revenue management and digital retailing functionality.
“We love when we can work with airlines prior to launch, to assist in their initial go-to-market, helping them build their systems and processes from the ground up, free of any legacy obstacles or habits,” said Jason Kelly, Kambr, CEO. “Lynx Air is an ideal partner for us given their mindset, ambitions, and market potential.”
Olive Product Release
In January, Olive officially launched a completely updated user experience. This was rebuilt from the ground up to support dynamic score calculations, all underpinned by a new more flexible 'criteria' data structure. In version one, requirements were limited to a particular structure and scoring, and we wanted to enable our users to create their own as they otherwise would through a spreadsheet.
Portfolio Company Job Openings
Koffie Labs - People Ops Manager
Noteworthy AI - Senior Machine Learning Engineer
We're always looking for more customers! If you have any contacts at large utilities (or smaller co-ops and ESCOs), please pass them our way.
Calling all advisors! We've begun to build out an advisory board, so let us know if you know anyone that might be a good fit.
Rumby - Multiple positions available