Big brands that have in some cases sat out for years the TV advertising frenzy around the biggest US sporting event — the Super Bowl — are returning Sunday and spending big amid record ad prices. It’s been a bumpy couple years marked by pandemic-era restraint and political polarization, but the American football championship offers an increasingly unequalled viewership too big to pass up.Olivier Douliery | AFP | Getty ImagesBrands and advertisers are seeking flexible terms as they face uncertainty about how President Donald Trump’s new tariffs will affect their businesses.The push for more lenient agreements, in which companies could pivot budgets quickly or shift their focus to different types of marketing as they react to the duties, has been the focus of conversations between media companies and advertisers in recent weeks, according to people close to the discussions.President Donald Trump announced he would put minimum 10% tariffs on all imports into the U.S., with far steeper duties on dozens of countries including China and Vietnam. The scarcity of specifics in recent weeks, and sometimes contrasting messages coming from the White House, have fueled conversations about flexibility between chief marketing officers and media executives, the people said.”In this period of uncertainty, we’re seeing a significant shift toward more flexible, performance-based advertising models that allow brands to adjust spending quickly if conditions change,” said Jonathan Gudai, CEO of Adomni, an artificial intelligence-powered programmatic video-everywhere advertising platform. Buying ads programmatically, or through digital platforms, has taken up an increasingly large part of ad spending, and using AI tools are now often part of the process.Unsteadiness in the economy often mean companies pull back on spending for advertising and marketing. The potential hit to the ad market underscores the ripple effect of tariffs on companies that won’t directly contend with heightened costs on products.Tariffs aren’t the only factor causing advertisers to rethink their budgets, said Kate Scott-Dawkins, global president of business intelligence of GroupM, WPP’s media investment group.”We were pretty bullish in our December forecast on [ad spending] growth for the U.S. I think we’ll probably end up curbing that in the June forecast, …
