• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 4, 2015

Israel-based Wix blew away stats during its $4.5 million 30-second Super Bowl campaign, integrating broadcast television, search, social and display media into the mix. The $4.5 million, 30-second TV spot aired in the fourth quarter around the two minute break of the Patriots vs. Seahawks game in Super Bowl XLIX on NBC.

About 120.4 million people tuned into the two-minute warning during the game. The Wix spot aired next. Victoria's Secret followed, drawing in about 120.4 million viewers, said Eric Mason, Wix director of communications. NBC said viewership of the game peaked at about 120.8 million viewers between 9:45 and 10 p.m. ET.

"We had the highest viewership of any Super Bowl ad," Mason said. "Much of that is very serendipitous, but frankly I think it was a gutsy call by our CMO to run the ad in the fourth quarter."The $4.5 million for 30 seconds was worth the media buy even before the kickoff, Mason said, because of the engagement seen across all online media channels. "We put up the Emmitt Smith line dancing video, and it gained 1.5 million views on Facebook within 24 hours, about three weeks before kickoff," he said.

Mason said the campaign succeeded because crossing channels was not an afterthought. A report published this week from Merkle | RKG analyzes the company's paid-search keyword coverage to capture interested Super Bowl searchers. Not only were the brand's ads showing, but each ad was curated to match the variety of queries on which it advertised, per the report. Each of Wix's ads were paired with a unique search ad, with fun sitelinks and hashtags from their Super Bowl campaign, along with relevant callout extensions that took up additional real estate on search results pages. The targeted approach and varied keyword list kept the brand in the conversation with fans.

Communication across the company's media-buying groups becomes essential when mapping out a cross-channel campaign, along with keeping an authentic voice when developing all content. To design the campaign, marketers responsible for buying social, search, display, and television media sat down together to discuss the strategy. The global media infrastructure already exists to deliver an overarching global marketing strategy. The Wix team produces content in 12 languages in 190 countries.

A television advertisement that ties into search, display, and social would become the backdrop for a cross-channel campaign narrative -- something simple that told the story with a clear and humorous message, but not boring. Celebrities help to tell the story.

For instance, the Green Bay Packers and Seahawks played in one of the championship games. A Wix celebrity in the ad, Brett Favre, also is a former Packers quarterback. As part of the strategy, Wix created content several weeks prior to the game to run in a Sunday teaser ad for the Packers and Seahawks game. It would become the beginning of the campaign.

"We never looked at the TV spot as an ad, but rather as one piece to a cross-channel campaign," Mason said. "Internally, we talked about a Super Bowl Campaign, but always considered content, search and social components. The TV ad didn't stand on its own, but was magnified by everything we did."