• NY Times, Tuesday, February 7, 2006 10:16 AM

It used to be that those super-expensive Super Bowl ads would disappear forever following the Big Game. Nowadays, Madison Avenue is trying to figure out what extended after-life these ads receive on the Web really means. This year's ads are now widely available on a multitude of formats—streaming Web pages, downloadable email files, video podcasts, etc.—prolonging the discourse that follows almost indefinitely. Super Bowl advertising is a media event in and of itself, making the estimated $2.5 million price tag for the 30 second spots seem like "something of a bargain," according to Stuart Elliott of The New York Times. Advertising executives who oversaw the purchase of these ads agree. "What's happening in the postgame more than made up for the cost," said one. Not only that, but the Internet media giants know these spots generate traffic, and advertisers. AOL, Google, MSN and Yahoo--the big four Web companies--as well as sports sites like ESPN and NFL.com, have all put up video clips of the Super Bowl commercials. In fact, yesterday, Time Warner's AOL said that a record 23 million Super Bowl commercials were streamed by yesterday afternoon--and the company even sells a video ad before showing each Super Bowl spot.

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