Exposure is critical to advertisers who spend millions on Super Bowl ads, and the best way to capitalize on that investment is to extend the life of the ad beyond the game itself, BBDO Worldwide CEO Andrew Robertson told CNBC on Friday.
"You can't think of it as just the four hours on Sunday night," Robertson said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "If you're going to make sense of that kind of investment, you've got to turn it into an event for your brand that lasts certainly days and hopefully weeks."
And that's what Robertson's firm has aimed to do for its clients in past years: create advertisements that garner record views before, during and even after the big game.
"Last year, by the time we got to Monday morning, there had been 330 million views of ads on YouTube, 330 million. And then another 40 percent in the two weeks after the Super Bowl," he said.
This year, the cost of a 30-second ad for Sunday night's NFL championship game climbed to about $5.2 million, Robertson said. A 60-second ad can set a company back double that, about $10.4 million, with a meager discount of two seconds for free, he confirmed.
BBDO's only client for Super Bowl LI on Fox is Mars-owned candy brand Snickers, which is changing the ad game this year by featuring the Super Bowl's first ever live ad, Roberston said.
"We're doing it because it makes it a little but more interesting, and as the bar gets raised every year, you've got to find a new way to get your brand to stand out in this environment," the CEO said.
Hype for the ad is being built up by various teasers, including a 36-hour live stream on Facebook featuring celebrities. Though Robertson would not reveal the ad's content, he said it focuses on Snickers' iconic theme: "You're not you when you're hungry."
Correction: This story has been revised to correct the network airing the game and that a 60-second ad costs about $10.4 million.