Social Media Changing Super Bowl Ads?

Not only was last Sunday the biggest day of the year for football, it was also the biggest day of the year for advertising. USA Today acknowledges this significance and has been measuring the popularity of ads run during the big game for the last 20 years. To see how the 2011 ads fared, check out this article.

I think one of the more interesting trends, though, was noted in an article by Bruce Horovitz that ran today in USA Today. The author points out how social media is changing how Super Bowl ads are rolled out. Companies no longer wait until the big game to unveil ads--they are pushing them out before kickoff via social media, like Facebook and Twitter. Also the article notes that this pregame unveiling didn't seem to hurt how popular the ads were during the game. Could this be a sea change in advertising?

To learn more about social media and advertising, check out these books at Cook Library:

• Advertising and new media by Christina Spurgeon
• Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we do business by Erik Qualman