Venyu Blog

Back in the day (ok, just a few years ago anyway) when there were no instant message or social service sites to ratchet up interest, the Super Bowl was the equivalent of must-see TV for gridiron challenged fans hungering for creative, cutting-edge commercials from the world’s leading brands.  While the economic climate probably has at least something (ok, maybe a whole lot) to do with it, the influence of social networking sites like Facebook and services like Twitter is not going unnoticed.  For example, instead of spending $3M on a 30 second-slot, long-time soft drink giant Pepsi launched an online social-networking campaign that enabled customers to interact with the company. Pepsi has sponsored commercials for the past 23 years, slightly longer than the Bowl itself has been played. Other advertisers are reportedly following suit, incorporating social messaging into their advertising.  So while the numbers of households tuning into this year’s Super Bowl has officially eclipsed the television viewing benchmark set by the final episode of M*A*S*H (106.5 million versus 106 million for the long-running CBS sitcom), those are some hefty numbers. Still, if a global giant like Pepsi has made a strategic decision to swim in the direction of the social networking tide, it’s probably a reliable indicator of things to come as other well-known brands jettison costly commercials on “event television” for the climes of more economically prudent (and far-reaching) social websites.

http://www.product-reviews.net/2010/02/08/super-bowl-2010-ads-twitter-and-facebook-used-by-commercials/

On a related note, the Wall Street Journal reports that the famous Twitter “Fail Whale” appeared during the final moments of the Super Bowl, as viewers apparently crashed Twitter with too many tweets about the game. I guess the days of discussing the big game around the water cooler the morning after are giving way to fans’ varied and sundry opinions, in real-time, as the game is being played.

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/02/07/did-the-super-bowl-kill-twitter/?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines