For
the last couple of years, Super Bowl advertisers have been drastically
changing their decades-old strategy of keeping mum about their
commercials until the spots are broadcast during the game. Instead of
trying to surprise viewers, many sponsors are filling social-media
platforms with previews, teasers and coming attractions in hopes of stimulating additional interest.
In
another sign of that strategy’s growing popularity, Google is adding
for the first time a gallery of teaser video clips to the annual YouTube Ad Blitz channel
devoted to Super Bowl commercials. The gallery, scheduled to go live
early Friday morning, begins with preview videos from five advertisers
planning to run commercials during Super Bowl XLVIII on Feb. 2: Butterfinger, Doritos, Intuit, Squarespace and Pepsi, teasing its sponsorship of the halftime show.
“What
used to be a one-day event, with some postgame water-cooler chat, is
now an eight- to 13-week experience,” said Lucas Watson, vice president
for brand solutions at Google.
As a result, “major advertisers are trying to win the conversation” before the game, he said, as well as during and after.
Last
year, ads for the Super Bowl were watched on YouTube more than 80
million times before the game was played, Mr. Watson said — nearly a
third of the total of more than 265 million views for Super Bowl spots
on the site that year. Commercials uploaded to YouTube before the game
generated about 3.4 times more views on average, he added, than
commercials that were released on the day of the game.
At least three other advertisers -- Axe, Jaguar and SodaStream
– have joined the five appearing on the YouTube Ad Blitz channel in
already releasing teasers for their 2014 Super Bowl commercials. There
are discussions with the three advertisers to add their teasers to Ad
Blitz, a Google spokeswoman said, and those may go live next week.
A
survey released on Thursday by Unruly, a marketing technology company,
confirmed the trend that is leading YouTube to offer one-stop viewing
for Super Bowl ad teasers. According to Unruly, seven of the 20 ads from
the 2013 Super Bowl that were most shared in social media were
accompanied by teasers.
Also,
the Unruly survey found, 60 percent of the most-shared Super Bowl spots
of all time were introduced before they were broadcast during the
games.
Although
YouTube is adding the pregame teaser commercials to the Ad Blitz
channel, YouTube will not ask viewers to vote for their favorites the
same way it conducts a vote each year for favorites among the actual
Super Bowl commercials.
In adding coming attractions to the YouTube Ad Blitz, YouTube joins Hulu, which will include previews again in the 2014 version of its annual Super Bowl ad program, known as Hulu AdZone.
In the spirit of teaser-mania, Hulu has produced a video clip that promotes its annual vote on Hulu AdZone for favorite Super Bowl commercial.
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