• by February 5, 2002

While same-day traffic spikes to websites are but one measure of the effectiveness of offline advertising campaigns, Super Bowl XXXVI will be remembered for having one dominant television advertiser emerge from nowhere to become a recognizable online brand overnight. According to Jupiter Media Metrix's annual Super Bowl traffic ratings and analysis, AT&T's mlife.com registered traffic for the first time on the Saturday before the Super Bowl with 34,000 unique visitors, and then traffic spiked to 681,000 unique visitors on Super Bowl Sunday. Conversely, traffic to most other sites with significant tie-ins to Super Bowl television ads - such as Hotjobs.com, Monster.com, Schwab.com and Etrade.com - remained steady or decreased slightly.

"While most of this year's Super Bowl ads represented familiar brands that will likely enjoy longer-term results, mLife's immediate online success was likely driven by the novelty of the television campaign as well as the brand itself, " said Charles Buchwalter, vice president of media research at Jupiter Media Metrix. "Time will tell if the information gleaned from visits to mlife.com on Sunday will contribute to a successful brand launch."

While its entrance was not as dramatic as mlife.com, Pepsi was a noteworthy advertiser with a strong Web tie-in. Designed to engage Super Bowl viewers by enabling them to vote on the best Pepsi ad featuring Britney Spears, Pepsi.yahoo.com had no reportable traffic on the Saturday before the Super Bowl and then appeared in the ratings on Super Bowl Sunday with 135,000 unique visitors.

The three sites most closely linked to the Super Bowl and the Fox network's Super Bowl broadcast showed some of the most significant traffic increases. Foxsports.com, the official sports site of the Fox network, registered daily weekend traffic the Saturday before the Super Bowl with 1.1 million unique visitors, and then jumped to 1.4 million visitors on Super Bowl Sunday. Superbowl.com, which had been registering low levels of traffic prior to Super Bowl weekend, increased from 195,000 unique visitors on the Saturday before the Super Bowl to 1.2 million visitors on Super Bowl Sunday. Lastly, NFL Internet Group, which includes traffic to Nfl.com as well as NFL team sites, also first reported traffic on Saturday before the Super Bowl with 378,000 unique visitors, and then jumped to 1.4 million visitors on Super Bowl Sunday.

"With the power of a mass broadcast television audience behind it, Foxsports.com resurfaced as a competitor in a category long dominated by ESPN and CBS SportsLine," said Patrick Keane, vice president and senior Jupiter Research analyst. "But the question remains: can Foxsports.com maintain the ephemeral momentum of the Super Bowl and enter the pantheon of leading sports sites."

Traffic to NFL Internet Group and Superbowl.com peaked between 7:00 and 8:00 PM EST with 238,000 and 168,000 visitors in that time slot, respectively. Conversely, Foxsports.com peaked between 10:00 and 11:00 PM EST with 185,000 visitors. Interestingly, all three sites steadily built their audiences throughout Super Bowl Sunday, until 4:00 PM EST, when traffic to all three plummeted then spiked shortly after kick-off.