BigShinyThing

We love playing devil’s advocate in the ‘death of the 30 second spot’ debate. This week: maybe Video On Demand is the saviour of the TV commercial as opposed to its vanquisher.

Advertisers that forked out the estimated $2.5 million for each 30 second spot are seeing dividends in ‘ad action replays’ online. Witness the current YouTube stats for videos tagged ’super bowl ads’: Dove’s effort has been viewed 472 times, Budweiser 809, Bud Light 2,139. Even better, an (as always) ‘banned by ABC’ GoDaddy ad has enjoyed the attention of some 475,768 viewers. It should be noted that GoDaddy play ‘let’s get this banned and made notorious online’ game every year. And damn good at it they are to.

It’s as if VOD has provided the eyeball glue that advertisers and agencies have always lusted after. And they don’t even have to pay for this extra media exposure - the ad is posted online and let to proliferate via blogs, Video iPods and fan sites. It hasn’t all been left to chance though. As the FT pointed out prior to the game, many of this year’s Super Bowl advertisers have spent money buying keyword search advertising to attract viewers to their ads after the game. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, last year Super Bowl advertisers saw a 27 per cent rise in web site visits the day after the game. And it’s still money well spent. As the New York Times notes,

The resulting postgame buzz is resulting in a veritable midwinter festival of advertising.

Ever keen to help out advertisers these days, TiVo has also measured viewership of the ads on its players (asource: PVR Blog). And then there’s Google’s coverage pushing its much-maligned Google Video service.

Of course, the Super Bowl ads have always been a beauty parade, with the resulting work hyped both on and offline prior to the event. But as a test that the ad industry can create content compelling enough to be viewed again and again (the industry’s current pat response to the DVR threat) it may well have proved its point.