Super Bowl Websites: Winner & Losers

What if you built a Web site for the Super Bowl, but nobody cared? For at least one marketer on Super Bowl that appeared to be the case, judging by the number of DIGG endorsements the site got. Like obsessive, hyperactive consumers Sunday evening, we surfed to every Web site that linked up their TV ads to a Web or cell phone initiative. The majority of Super Bowl ads did link to a Web site. Some were well-integrated, with chances to register, compete for prizes, text for free stuff or otherwise play around with the brands. Here’s a rundown of the most interesting stuff we saw.

FoxSports.com
As the game progressed, a page on the NFL broadcaster’s site linked to each of the ads and lightly critiqued them. At about 6:12 into the First Quarter a Fox Sports Poll on their site with 5,150 votes found that Wings are the “best Super Bowl party food choice,” followed by Pizza, Chips + dip, Chili and Sandwiches. We were disappointed not to see goat cheese on the list. The site also featured a poll asking which ad was the best.

Doritos, SnackStrongProductions.com
The TV commercial showed a singer, one of three performers that fans had voted to elevate. The ad called out to the site, which in turn had links to MySpace pages where people could make their final choice for the best of the three musical groups. Nicely integrated and fun to participate, as well as listen to the music and watch what appeared to be homemade music videos.

PepsiStuff.com
The TV ad showed Justin Timberlake getting pulled across town like some stringless marionette being reeled in as a bikini-clad woman sucked Pepsi up a straw. The punchline was that “every sip gets you closer to Justin Timberlake MP3s” at PepsiStuff.com. The website, on Amazon (at the subdomain pepsistuff.amazon.com) features songs or albums by the likes of Timberlake, Alicia Keys, Led Zeppelin, Linkin Park and Daft Punk. Users can also get cuts from the albums via Pepsi points, available under the caps of Pepsi. We’re not sure how many sales of Pepsi it’ll spur (Coke has a similar offer) but it was pretty good Web-TV integration. Go to the site, get the stuff you think you’re going to get with minimal hassle. They get branding, name capture, more product sales.

Pepsi also gave us a spoof of commentators Joe Buck and Troy Aikman in front of the Super Bowl insignia with Buck falling asleep before drinking Diet Pepsi Max, and a “making of” video on YouTube on how they did a “deaf commercial” -- one without sound that made a play on a deaf joke, also viewable online.

Dell.com/JoinRed
Dell.com/JoinRed (a URL that was flashed at us way too fast on screen) featured a Flash site explaining that buying a computer through it would help send products to the Global Fund to Help Eliminate Aids in Africa. Part of the Red campaign that Gap popularized. Microsoft is also participating as part of the campaign.

Hyundai Genesis
The car commercial talked of the USAToday.com ad meter, and the site showed the two ad spots and said users could text to a number for ringtones and wallpaper.

Tide to Go, MyTalkingStain.com
So much promise, but wanting in execution, the site had a place to upload a picture of your face, leave your voice (via an 800 number), and register to become one of 1,000 people to win a prize daily, such as an iPod, a Tide coupon or a Tide to Go pen. But it was all too hard. It’s enough of a leap to get someone watching TV to go to a website and log on. But make them also call an 800 number? And it was only after clicking through -- which we did because we had to write this -- then we saw that we didn’t have to leave our picture and voice to register for the contest.

There were lots more options, too: Submit a parody video on a special YouTube site (youtube.com/mytalkingstain), with “tools” to help include the Tide to Go “stain” logo in the video. Wallpaper. Get a stain ringtone by texting “stain” to 67000. The “voice” of the stain from the TV commercial as an MP3 for download. It all might, in aggregate, become successful, with folks playing with it, mashing it up. It’s also great for some parody, and Tide may have to grit its teeth if the parodies of a talking shirt stain are really good. Talking stains have all kinds of unfortunate possibilities.

GoDaddy.com
Sex sells, but does this sex sell to all audiences? GoDaddy.com was a real tease, showing on the site an ad that was rejected for TV. The TV ad showed Indy race car driver Danica Patrick unzipping her jersey on TV with a call to go to GoDaddy.com to see her revealed. The site featured her “Exposure” ad, linked from a banner atop the site. “A domain name and a Web site from GoDaddy.com give me all the exposure I need, so I can keep my beaver safe and out of sight,” she says, zipping her jersey back up. The “beaver” in question was a stuffed animal shown previously in the Web-hosted commercial. The site asked users to say whether they liked the commercial or not, their age group, etc. (We suspect there will be a large representation of males between the ages of 13 and 24 and not a terribly large number of girls and women signing up for GoDaddy due to this campaign.)

Coca Cola / MyCodeRewards.com
The site had a “see Big Day commercials” link for two coke commercials and the blog Coca-ColaConversations.com, written by the Coke company archivist talking about the commercials, as well as Democratic strategist and commentator James Carville and Republican former Senator Bill Frist in a “behind-the-scenes” video talking about the commercial that showed them becoming friends over the soft drink. The archivist, Phil Mooney, calls for a conversation, and there is a way to leave comments lower on the blog, though not for the individual post. The MyCokeRewards site, like Pepsi’s, awarded songs for points, and there were other prizes as well, like a commemorative bottle or a carabineer bottle holder.

Sunsilk / LifeCantWait.com
Sunsilk did believe that women and girls would be interested, and their website, while not having any obvious links to the Super Bowl, was called out to prominently from the Super Bowl TV commercial. Unfortunately, the “Share Your Story” link that was mentioned only showed in a side navigation bar that appeared only if moused over, and linked to a separate MySpace page that required a long registration process. The site had stories and videos of Marilyn Monroe, Madonna and Shakira, the idea being that these “go getter girls” couldn’t wait, and instead make life happen. Unfortunately, the “Create Your Hair Timeline” was “Coming Soon” rather than live.

SalesGenie.com
Allowed users to watch and rate their three Super Bowl Commercials.

Apple
The Macbook Air commercial had no URL. We suppose they figure that anyone who knows how to buy a Mac knows how to find them online.

Bridgestone.com
Also, oddly, Bridgestone.com, sponsors of the halftime show, settled for a site that put up their ad spots. Nothing else.

Etrade
Ditto.

AA.com
Double ditto. Their commercial called out prominently to AA.com, but the site had nothing beyond the usual airline-style Web page, with checkin, reservation options and so on.

NFL Networks
The IWantNFLNetwork.com site mentioned in their ad didn’t seem to have anything special for the Super Bowl.

Underarmour.com
The underwear and sporting goods commercial was available on their site, which was visually well-integrated with the campaign and gave users a chance to pre-order a sneaker with a countdown to its release in eight days. The integration was not as obvious or smooth as, say, Pepsi’s but it was compelling and unified in look and feel with its “Future is Ours” theme.

Sobe Life Water / Thrillicious.com
On the Web site, a lizard who stars in the TV ad talks about getting a part in a Super Bowl commercial with a supermodel, “30 of us guys all naked.” We took the option offered to “Digg” the video and were only the second to do so. We forewent the offer to embed the commercial on our site.

Cars.com
Rather than just showing us their TV commercials, Cars.com gave us mildly amusing broad humor videos of a “waiting room” containing the Witch Doctor, Dungeon Guy and other characters from the “Plan B” commercials. (Plan A is a car dealer gives a deal that Cars.com informed the buyer about. Plan B is threats to the dealer from the characters.) Technical note: The site didn’t work on the Firefox browser on a Mac.

NFLShop.com
Now THAT’s integration. A TV ad tells Giant fans to go to the site to buy official Giants championship paraphernalia.

In Sum

Usually, we’re in a kind of beer-and-chip induced torpor as we watch the Super Bowl. Of course, our “engagement” this time might have been because we’re New Yorkers and so actually cared who won. Plus there was the whole Patriots sports-history, supermodel girlfriend of the quarterback thing.

In addition to watching chat rooms and stats and voting on the game’s plays on ESPN.com and NFL.com and SI.com, and looking for blog mentions on Technorati, getting fan comments off comment boards, even tracking South Asians on the South Asian Journalists’ Association website, we had a lot of fun going further with the commercials than just watch them on TV. And we were more impressed than ever at the unbelievable opportunity to get people interacting with a brand, giving up personal information, asking for more, and so on. One word to marketers, though: Flashing your URL for less than a second is not the way to build Web traffic and light to spark that can make it all happen. Especially for obsessive viewers with a computer in their laps.

Dorian Benkoil is a regular contributor to JackMyers Media Business Report.