• by Shankar Gupta , February 7, 2006

Companies are willing to spend $2.4 million on 30 seconds in the Super Bowl, but still lag in integrating those pricey spots online. That's the conclusion of search engine marketing firm Reprise Media, which Monday released its Super Bowl Search Marketing Scorecard, grading companies on the integration between their Super Bowl ads and their Web presence.

"We were both surprised and disappointed that marketers still seem to miss the point that search marketing can feed their more cohesive, integrated marketing effort," said Reprise Media Managing Partner Josh Stylman. "In the grand scheme, you're really talking about a minimal investment, particularly because it's the low-hanging fruit. It's customers who are looking for the brand after seeing them on television--in a sense, they've already paid to acquire them."

Stylman said that online pure-plays Overstock.com, GoDaddy.com, and CareerBuilder.com were among the Super Bowl advertisers who made the best use of Web marketing.

Other top scorers on Reprise's scorecard include Paramount's Mission Impossible 3, and Disney's Shaggy Dog, both of which purchased keywords on their own names or on Super Bowl related terms, tied their search ad creatives back to their TV commercial, had extensive and interactive landing pages, and had commercials that featured site URLs.

Fast food giant Burger King got high marks for an interactive game tied to the Super Bowl creative, produced by ad shop Crispin Porter + Bogusky, and extensive search advertising, Stylman said.

But rival fast food company McDonald's didn't fare as well. The company's Web presence was "an embarrassment," Stylman said, landing in the bottom tier with other companies whose Web sites were difficult to navigate or find, and who had no URLs in the commercials.

The top ads picked by Reprise for integration weren't necessarily the ads that captured the public's imagination. An America Online poll found that the Budweiser "Streaker" ad was the most popular, garnering 13 percent of the more than 300,000 votes cast by Monday. Other popular favorites on AOL included the Fed-Ex "Cavemen" spot, and the spot featuring a Budweiser Clydesdale Colt.