• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 12, 2024

The stakes were high for advertisers on Sunday -- not only on national television, but for searches on Google.

The National Football League’s Super Bowl LVIII attracted 39 million U.S. households -- up 6% from the prior year, reaching the highest Super Bowl viewership seen in the past six years, according to Samba TV.

It was not only the game that attracted viewers A total of 30.1 million U.S. households watched the 2024 Super Bowl Halftime Show, up 5% from the prior year, Samba's data shows.

Sunday’s game on CBS included previous advertisers, such as B, M&Ms, Budweiser, Google, and Microsoft as well as many first-time advertisers, such as ice-cream brand Drumstick, Robert Kraft’s Stand Up to Jewish Hate, PepsiCo, online marketplace Etsy, chocolate brand Lindt, and cosmetics brand E.l.f. Cosmetics.

As the Kansas City Chiefs battled the San Francisco 49ers once again for the 2024 title and fans watched the ads, they also searched across Google and YouTube for a variety of reasons.

Some of the most-searched questions about Super Bowl ads included the cost of a Super Bowl commercial, who is in the Starry commercial, how many commercials are in the Super Bowl, and when will the Budweiser Clydesdale commercial be on.

Viewers also wanted to know who was in the Mountain Dew commercial, and who paid for the Jesus commercials.

The drug brand Cetaphil captured Google searches before and during the game. Searches for the brand spiked in the days leading up to the game, and after the brand released its Super Bowl commercial.

Music is very much a part of game day. YouTube trends seen in data pulled on Sunday show the two new songs Beyoncé announced appeared in the top 30 on the Trending Music Videos list on YouTube.

Super Bowl ads posted on YouTube had more than 90 million views on game day, and more than 1 million watch hours on the day of the game. Views per hour on Usher’s official YouTube channel peaked at 7x higher compared with last Sunday.

Minutes before kickoff, the top trending “...in football” search was “how long is halftime in football, and “why does usher wear gloves” was the top trending “why…” minutes before kickoff.

As the teams took the field, the top trending “who is mr…” searches were “who is mr irrelevant” and “who is mr las vegas”

An hour into the game, the top trending “...for dummies” in the US was “understanding football for dummies.”

Then “why do football players have tails” was a breakout search an hour into the game.

The search “did beyonce drop a new album” became a breakout search after a Verizon commercial featuring Beyoncé aired, and “streaker” became the top trending search in the U.S. during the 3rd quarter.

The top searches during the halftime show in the U.S. included Cirque du Soleil, which saw a more than 600% spike in the first few minutes of the Halftime Show. People also searched for “adult piano lessons near me,” which rose more than 250%. Searches for “roller skates” spiked more than 1,850% as Usher skated across the stage during the halftime show, and “what is ‘A’ town” more than tripled during the Halftime Show.