Why Are Super Bowl Advertisers Always Using Older Songs?

Bud Light’s Super Bowl LX ad featured Post Malone, though an 80s Whitney Houston song was the real star.

Beyond Bad Bunny’s headline-hogging Halftime Show lies a potentially more interesting music industry story — one in which major advertisers almost exclusively tapped catalog classics for their multi-million-dollar ad spots. But why all the nostalgia?

Make no mistake, Super Bowl LX was stuffed with musical stars, starting with Bad Bunny, Lady Gaga, and Ricky Martin, all of whom graced the high-wattage Halftime Show. On the commercial side, mega-stars like Post Malone, Charli XCX, DJ Khaled, Sabrina Carpenter, and Benson Boone flamed the celebrity sizzle.

But the real magic in many of those ads came from tracks released decades ago, with some featured songs more than 50 years old.

Shockingly, very few spots featured newer songs released in the last decade — and those that did were the rare exceptions.

One exception was Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Espresso,’ tapped by Pringles for a broader ad featuring the singer herself. Benson Boone was also the star musical performer in a comic Instacart ad.

For most Super Bowl LX mega-advertisers, however, the go-to track was the catalog classic, with smashes from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and early 2000s dominating the sync soundscape. Bud Light factored Post Malone into the celebrity cast of their ‘Keg’ spot, but the music driving the comic ad was Whitney Houston’s 1992 mega-hit, “I Will Always Love You”.

Similarly, Budweiser tapped Lynyrd Skynyrd’s 1973 lighter-raiser “Free Bird” for its mega-budget spot, while Pepsi used Queen’s 1982 classic, “We Will Rock You.” Also tapping into 80s nostalgia was Michelob ULTRA, which used Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” to drive home its message.

Indeed, seemingly every commercial interlude featured yet another catalog classic.

Novartis used Enya’s 2000 new age classic “Only Time” for a jokey ‘tight end’ ad, while Wegovy used Skee-lo’s 1995 upbeat rap hit, “I Wish,” with DJ Khaled featured in the spot.

Even older acts were featured, with the Backstreet Boys a central component of T-Mobile’s nostalgia-fueled appeal. Digging deeper, late-60s songs were prominently featured, albeit as covers, with Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and Mr. Rogers “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” reimagined by Andy Samberg and Lady Gaga, respectively.

This certainly isn’t the first Super Bowl featuring deep catalog classics. We’ve seen this lopsidedness before, but why are mega-advertisers almost exclusively tapping older stuff?

One reason might be the universal appeal and easy lift that comes from a tried-and-true classic, particularly in ultra-fragmented times like these. Poor advertisers: thrust into the divisive soup of a Bad Bunny Halftime Show and endless political headaches, brands like Bud Light simply want to appeal to big customer bases again.

And with ad budgets often starting at $10 million, you can’t fault a brand for wanting a musical safe bet. But there’s data backing these choices: a 2023 study by Songtradr found that 85% of the most-liked Super Bowl ads with licensed music featured catalog tracks. Undoubtedly, advertisers are also seeing stronger response data coming from catalog-synced ad concepts.

All of which is great news for a music industry now heavily invested in catalogs. Though when it comes to Super Bowl spots, brands are frequently only interested in the biggest, most iconic smash hits in the world — and they’re obviously willing to pay for them.