Uber Eats Gets Bang For Its Advertising Buck During the NCAA Tournament

Note: Advertising strategy is an important part of the restaurant business. Skift Table continues to look at the top spenders on television ads for the previous month across the industry.

Restaurant brands and delivery companies knew exactly where to put their television advertising dollars in March: the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

With the tourney heading into its final weekend, chains and third parties have shelled out more than $700 million for ads run during March Madness telecasts to date, according to iSpot.tv.

In particular, creative materials by Buffalo Wild Wings, Taco Bell, Domino’s, and Uber Eats have been hard to miss for basketball fans. Yet some chains, such as Burger King and McDonald’s, chose to stay clear of competitors last month, opting instead to advertise during NBA basketball games and popular TV shows.

Inside the Numbers

While Domino’s and Taco Bell earmarked tens of millions of dollars in March towards ads that generated more than 3.3 billion total impressions for each, Uber Eats and Buffalo Wild Wings arguably got more bang for their buck, with both brands heavily targeting males between 35 to 54 years old.

March (specifically March Madness) marked Uber Eats’ first national TV campaign, and followed DoorDash’s introduction to mainstream TV advertising in January. The food delivery service outspent all of its U.S. rivals last month, spending roughly $9 million. Uber Eats also garnered over 228 million impressions on just 60 broadcast airings, 28 of which were on primetime. Grubhub and DoorDash spent $6 million and $3 million, respectively, on TV advertising over the period. 

"We were excited to engage fans and customers across the country by partnering with the NCAA as the official food delivery partner this year," Uber Eats said in an emailed statement.

As for Buffalo Wild Wings, the chain successfully returned the casual dining sector back into the top 10 of advertising dollars spent in March; marketing itself as a safe haven for men fresh off vasectomies to recover while watching college basketball. Any game decided in overtime also resulted in at least $725,000 in media exposure for the brand, according to Bloomberg, due to creative material created by the Inspire Brands subsidiary for the occasion.

Overall, Taco Bell took the top spot in March with $46 million spent on TV marketing, a 22 percent increase over February. Last month’s top spender McDonald’s, along with Domino’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s, rounded out the top five.

Top Spending By Brands

Information is provided by TV advertising attention analytics company iSpot.tv.

Most-Run Ads by Brand

Below are the top advertisements run by each brand in the top five of TV ad dollars spent in March 2019, along with a list of the most popular programs and networks chosen by chains for airtime.

1. Taco Bell

Top ad: Be Warned

2. McDonald's

Top ad: Act of Kindness

3. Domino's

Top ad: Points for Pies

4. Burger King

Top ad: Turning up the Heat

5. Wendy's

Top ad: Everything

Information is provided by TV advertising attention analytics company iSpot.tv.