Taylor Swift's ‘Football Effect’ Drops 20% from 2024 While Ad Anticipation Surges, Zeta Global Data Shows

Zeta Global's analysis of 245M+ consumers reveals waning consumer interest in the game while love for commercials soars

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zeta Global (NYSE: ZETA), the AI-powered marketing cloud, released findings of real-time consumer insights ahead of this Sunday’s big game. Analyzing behavioral signals from over 245 million US consumers, Zeta’s Data Cloud reveals shifting audience sentiment toward the game, its entertainment and its advertising landscape.

Viewership trends suggest growing fatigue with repeat matchup of teams, leading to a measurable decline in excitement:

• Overall interest in the game is down 14% from last year
• Interest in Taylor Swift is down 20%
• Interest in the halftime show has declined 6%

Despite waning excitement for the game itself, consumer anticipation for the big game commercials has surged, up 192% year-over-year. In response, brands are ramping up investment, with the cost of a 30-second spot rising nearly 15% year-over-year, according to Statista.

Momentum for game day commercials is building month over month, jumping 19% from December 2024 to January 2025. This trend reinforces the strategic advantage of early ad releases as brands that unveil teasers and full ads ahead of the broadcast are maximizing engagement.

“While the buzz and the ‘Taylor Swift effect’ leading up to this year’s matchup is noticeably lower than last year, Sunday’s big game remains one of the most valuable advertising stages in the world,” said Neej Gore, Chief Data Officer at Zeta Global. “Global brands are just as excited as ever for the chance to reach this audience, but success requires the right data and insights to drive maximum ROI.”

Methodology

Zeta’s Data Cloud synthesizes trillions of monthly online and offline activity signals to understand the intents and interests of 245M+ US consumers. The 2025 game-day data points leveraged Zeta’s data and AI models around behavioral activity related to online content published and consumed related to football’s biggest night. Year-over-year comparisons leveraged data from similar periods between 2024 and 2025.

About Zeta Global

Zeta Global (NYSE: ZETA) is the AI Marketing Cloud that leverages advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and trillions of consumer signals to make it easier for marketers to acquire, grow, and retain customers more efficiently. Through the Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP), our vision is to make sophisticated marketing simple by unifying identity, intelligence, and omnichannel activation into a single platform – powered by one of the industry’s largest proprietary databases and AI. Our enterprise customers across multiple verticals are empowered to personalize experiences with consumers at an individual level across every channel, delivering better results for marketing programs. Zeta was founded in 2007 by David A. Steinberg and John Sculley and is headquartered in New York City with offices around the world. To learn more, go to www.zetaglobal.com.