FierceWireless has partnered with iSpot.tv, the real-time TV ad measurement company with attention and conversion analytics from more than 7 million smart TVs, to bring you a monthly snapshot of the wireless industry's advertising spending. This is what the top wireless operators are pushing in their TV ads.
The results below are for the top five spenders among wireless industry brands from Feb. 1-28.
1. Verizon
- spent an estimated $55 million on 12 spots that ran nearly 7,600 times
- generated over 2.5 billion TV ad impressions
- prioritized spend on these networks: NBC, Fox and TNT
- prioritized spend on this programming: Super Bowl LII, the 2018 Winter Olympics and NBA Basketball
The Verizon ad with the most spend (est. $32.6 million): “Departures,” featuring Thomas Middleditch
2. Sprint
- spent an estimated $51.3 million on 15 spots that ran over 7,700 times
- generated over 2 billion TV ad impressions
- prioritized spend on these networks: NBC, Fox and ABC
- prioritized spend on this programming: the 2018 Winter Olympics, Super Bowl LII and NBA Basketball
The Sprint ad with the most spend (est. $26 million): “Intern”
3. T-Mobile
- spent an estimated $51.1 million on 10 spots that ran over 8,800 times
- generated 2.3 billion TV ad impressions
- prioritized spend on these networks: NBC, ABC and Fox
- prioritized spend on this programming: Super Bowl LII, "The Walking Dead" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"
The T-Mobile ad with the most spend (est. $12 million): “New Year, New Phones for the Family”
4. MetroPCS
- spent an estimated $23.3 million on 13 spots that ran over 4,300 times
- generated 1.2 billion TV ad impressions
- prioritized spend on these networks: Fox, ABC and TNT
- prioritized spend on this programming: NBA Basketball, the 2018 NBA All-Star Game and "The Bachelor"
The MetroPCS ad with the most spend (est. $11.8 million): “Sharing With No Limits”
5. Boost Mobile
- spent an estimated $16.3 million on two spots that ran over 4,300 times
- generated 871.4 million TV ad impressions
- prioritized spend on these networks: Fox, ABC and ESPN
- prioritized spend on this programming: College Basketball, "Lethal Weapon" and NBA Basketball
The Boost Mobile ad with the most spend (est. $14.4 million): “You Get a Line!”
ISpot's data do not include co-promotions or local market data. Click here for more on iSpot.tv's methodology.
The company's software leverages proprietary audio and video fingerprinting algorithms to automatically identify and extract TV commercials, movie trailers and show promotions.
The company tracks hundreds of millions of explicit interactions with TV ads across roughly 100 million unique consumers. These interactions include video plays, searches and social activity. The company also analyzes online views across YouTube and iSpot.tv, searches on Google, Bing and Yahoo!, and social activity on Facebook (including Facebook private views) and Twitter.
ISpot.tv tags over 40 different dimensions of metadata, including brand, agency, actors, products, songs, moods, URLs and other pertinent data, to create its results.