• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, February 9, 2009

Here's an Online wrap of Super Bowls past and present to conclude the Research Brief''s highlights of the "Bowl" phenomenon. The downstream links offer as much detail as a reader would want to pursue.  The TNS Media‘s annual post-game analysis of Super Bowl advertising combines findings on this year's brand face-offs, top advertisers, commercial ratings, and online buzz generated by this year's winners and losers.

Dean DeBiase, CEO of TNS Media, notes that "... The Super Bowl... demonstrates the impact that truly integrated advertising initiatives can have... marketers work to ensure synergies between... traditional, online and in-store promotional activities, but not to the extent seen in the Super Bowl... the results... should serve as a catalyst to encourage deeper integration across all media platforms year round."

Super Bowl XLIII featured a record-tying amount of network commercial time. NBC aired 45 minutes, 10 seconds of advertising messages Between the opening kickoff and the final whistle. This included paying sponsors, messages from the NFL and promotional plugs.

Network Ad Time in the Super Bowl Game (mm:ss)
Year	Total Ad Time	Brand Ads	Network Promos
2009	45:10:00	38:00:00	7:10
2008	44:30:00	36:35:00	7:55
2007	43:05:00	33:30:00	9:35
2006	44:15:00	36:55:00	7:20
2005	40:15:00	35:20:00	4:55
2004	41:55:00	34:00:00	7:55
Source: TNS Media Intelligence, February 2009

32 different companies aired in-game spots for a total of 84 commercials. The top four advertisers (excluding program promotions by NBC) in terms of total ad time were PepsiCo, Anheuser Busch InBev, General Electric and Viacom. This elite group accounted for 40 percent of the total paid ad time.

Top Advertisers in 2009 Super Bowl Game
Parent Company	Ad Time (mm:ss)	Number of Units
Pepsico	5:30	8
Anheuser-Busch InBev	4:30	7
General Electric	2:30	4
Viacom	2:30	3
Source: TNS Media Intelligence, February 2009

The past four years have seen four different networks air the game. During this cycle, the advertising presence of the network's owner has ranged from 30 seconds to 4 ½ minutes. GE's 2009 footprint of 2:30 is larger than either News Corp in 2008 or National Amusements in 2007. However, it lags the 4:30 of air time that Disney-owned entities had in the 2006 telecast.

"In-House" Super Bowl Ad Time Purchases
Year	Super Bowl Network	Network Parent Owner	mm:ss of Ads From Parent Owner
2009	NBC	General Electric	2:30
2008	Fox	News Corp	0:30
2007	CBS	National Amusements	1:00
2006	ABC	Disney	4:30
Source: TNS Media Intelligence, February 2009

Motion pictures continued to be the dominant Super Bowl ad category to build awareness for upcoming releases. Nine different movies had in-game ads, a level on par with recent years. However, this year the studios opted for longer-length units as compared to 2008.

Non-alcoholic beverages also had a significant presence in the game. Pepsi and Coke again went head-to-head, but unlike a year ago, Coke abstained from promoting its non-soda brand lines and conceded that stage to Pepsi which ran spots for Gatorade and SoBe Life.

Car manufacturers had a reduced presence with Audi, Hyundai and Toyota combining for just 3 minutes of air time. Supplementing this was another 2:30 of ads from auto-related advertisers Bridgestone, Cars.com and Castrol to keep the total category even with last year.

Tob Advertising Categories
	2009 Game		2008 Game
Product Category	# Unique Products	Ad Time (mm:ss)	# Unique Products	Ad Time (mm:ss)
Motion Pictures	9	7:00	7	4:00
Automotive	8	5:30	7	5:30
Auto Manufacturers	5	3:00	5	4:00
Other	3	2:30	2	1:30
Non-Alcoholic Beverages	6	5:30	8	7:30
Soft Drinks	4	4:00	3	4:00
Non-Soft Drinks	2	1:30	5	3:30
Beer	3	4:30	2	4:00
Source: TNS Media Intelligence, February 2009

Not only did the movie studios dominate TV ad time, they also dominated the discussion in the first 36 hours following the game: five of the ten most-discussed advertisers were movies. Almost half of the discussion of Super Bowl ads took place on social media sites focused on movies, video games, and entertainment news.

Most Talked About Advertisers
Advertiser	Volume Index
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen	737
Star Trek	500
Anheuser-Busch	476
GI Joe: Rise of Cobra	455
Doritos	387
Pepsi	309
Land of the Lost	261
Fast and Furious	221
Coca Cola	215
Hulu	198
Source: TNS Cymfony, February 2009       Volume index represents the amount of discussion for each advertiser, relative to the median amount of discussion for all Super Bowl advertisers. E.g. Transformers received more than seven times the amount of discussion of the average advertiser.

While Doritos may have won the Super Bowl ad voting on USAToday, Anheuser-Busch bested all non-movie advertisers in the amount of discussion generated by their ads. The advertisers that didn't make the most-discussed list included E-Trade "Talking Baby" and Audi "Chase."

Jim Nail, Chief Marketing Officer of TNS Cymfony, said "This year, viewers engaged with ads about entertainment and affordable indulgences... Financial services and automobiles are not on consumers minds, so their ads... popular in past years... didn't resonate this year."

Viewing behavior during the game and the commercial breaks yielded the following highlights based on clickstream data collected from over 300,000 Households:

• On average, 29.8% of HH's tuned into the game itself. The pre-game show averaged a 22% rating while over 23.4% of homes viewed at least one second of the post-game award presentation
• 5.3% of HH's viewed the game on NBC-HD, representing close to 11% of the total audience
• Few viewers tuned away from the commercial breaks during the game with the spot-to-program retention index averaging 100 (CVI). The highest commercial retention score went to the promotional ad marketing various USA network programs, which posted a 121 in the spot just after the game ended. During the post-game as viewing dropped from a rating of 32.l% to 23.4%, the commercial retention remained constant. The last pod, airing prior to The Office, averaged a CVI retention score of 95
• A second-by-second look at commercial avoidance reveals that about 1% of commercial seconds were avoided by channel changing
• The NBC-HD audience was even less likely to tune away, with only 0.8% percent of those seconds being lost, perhaps reflecting the fact that almost all of the Super Bowl advertising was presented in high definition.

Top Gaining Advertiser Web Sites
Web site	Reach Increase on Super Bowl Day
Dennys.com	1679%
Cheetos.com	313%
Budweiser.com	148%
Gatorade.com	143%
Budlight.com	104%
Godaddy.com	103%
Hyundaiusa.com	78%
Hulu.com	76%
Bridgestonetire.com	69%
Teleflora.com	65%
Source: TNS Compete, February 2009      Reach Change represents the change in daily reach to the Web site from the average during the week preceding the Super Bowl. Eg.Dennys.com reach on the day of the Super Bowl was nearly 17 times higher than during the week leading up to the game.

Matthew Pace, Director of Retail at TNS Compete, concludes that "... some of the most talked about advertisers (are) at the top of the pack in terms of site traffic on Super Bowl Sunday... a strong call to action alone is not enough to engage consumers... (one) needs... (a message) that resonates with the consumers you are trying to target, like a free breakfast."

More details and information may be found here, and a complete log of all commercials, their pod positions and actual creatives are available here.