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Super Bowl Sunday has always been a coveted media spot for television advertisers.  The first 30 second spot aired in 1967, and cost $37,500.  Now, 45 years later, advertisers pay $3.5 million for 30 seconds.   The demand for advertising spots during the game has not changed but what has changed is that Super Bowl ads are not just for TV anymore.   Over the past few years there have been many examples of media convergence during the Super Bowl, where Advertisers are building much bigger campaigns around their 30 second spot by engaging consumers on their computer, tablet and mobile screens pre, post and during the game.

Examples of media convergence planned for this Sunday’s game:

Volkswagen
Last year’s “The Force” spot garnered a lot of attention.  This year VW is capitalizing on the buzz and anticipation around their spot by releasing a teaser video titled “the bark side” weeks before the Super Bowl and by releasing the actual ad a week before the game. Upon writing this, VW has already generated over 12 million impressions of the two videos on YouTube, as well a significant amount of chatter in the blogosphere.  In addition to releasing the ads on video sharing sites, VW has executed a search engine marketing strategy to capture consumers searching for the ad.

Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is bringing back their iconic Polar Bears for this year’s Super Bowl.   Alongside their spot they are launching a microsite, www.cokepolarbowl.com, where the Bears will be watching and reacting to the Super Bowl in real time.   Fans have an opportunity to communicate with the Polar Bears via Facebook, Twitter and a mobile application.

General Motors Chevrolet
Chevrolet, which is expected to run several ads during the Super Bowl, is releasing an app for mobile phones and tablets to generate social media activity during the game.

The Chevy Game Time app -- available in the Android Market, Apple's App Store and on the Chevy website, will pose trivia and poll questions on subjects including the game, teams and commercials. Consumers who answer trivia correctly or choose the most common poll answer will be entered into drawings to win one of thousands of prizes from Chevrolet as well as Bridgestone, Motorola, the NFL and NFLShop.com, Papa John's Pizza and Sirius XM Radio. Everyone who downloads the app will also receive a unique "license plate" number. Consumers whose numbers match any plate in Chevy's Super Bowl spots will win a vehicle.

Smart advertisers understand that the way consumers consume media has converged. Consumers are accessing content on multiple screens at the same time and advertisers are communicating to them that way.  Even smarter advertisers will learn how to converge their measurement as well.  Since media is no longer consumed in a vacuum it can’t be measured that way either.

Tammy Chiasson