For many, the Super Bowl is more about advertising than football (though last night's game was far better than the ads). Last night was about integrated ad campaigns: - In real-time, Dockers rain a Facebook premium ad campaign to match their Super Bowl TV spots, "Wear the Pants" - Volkswagen did the same with their VW PunchDub spot - ETrade released "Baby Outtakes" from their successful TV spots... and got thousands of "likes" within hours - Dorritos, one of the largest advertisers, ran their ads from crowd-sourced ads and creatives The days of using the internet to merely gauge ad popularity are over...
We are now in the days of using the internet (and social networks in particular) to engage beyond the thirty-second spot. Facebook, Twitter and other social mediums are enabling fully integrated, social ad units. In a way, it makes the job of the marketer easier as there is flexibility to move beyond the thirty-second constraint (of course, that does require larger, integrated campaigns and therefore more work).
This also shows the power of Facebook as an advertising platform and the role it is playing within big marketers' budgets / mindsets. Examples below:
Dockers "Wear the Pants"
The Facebook ad unit
The Facebook ad with video playing
Dockers Facebook Fan Page
The Dockers website integration
VW PunchDub
ETrade Outtakes
TechCrunch reviewed the Super Bowl ads here and FT.com did here.