We’ve provided five tips to strategically optimize your Super Bowl investment and position your brand to capture the demand created by your 30-second spot:

1. CMO Briefing top i c
Digital strategies to support
Multiply the Effect of Your Brand’s Super Bowl your Super Bowl commercial
t h e op p ort u n i t y
Commercial Through Digital Integration Maximize your Super Bowl
commercial investment
This year, Super Bowl advertisers will spend a record $3.5 million c h a n n e l s i m pac t e d
per 30-second spot. This investment positions advertisers in front of TV, paid search, organic search,
the largest television audience of the year; for instance, Super Bowl mobile, social, display
2011 drew a record 111 million U.S. viewers. And this year—for the first
time ever—the big game will air online (including on mobile devices).
Football fans—and commercial fans—won’t miss a second of the
action, even as they run to the fridge and the bathroom. j a n u a r y 2 0 1 2
A Super Bowl commercial buy is the ultimate branding play. But getting your product/service in front of 100+
million people doesn’t mean your job as a marketer is done. Your Super Bowl ad boosts brand awareness, thus
spurring people to search online for your brand or talk about your commercial on social networks. Once this
happens, you must maintain the connection that your Super Bowl commercial created with your participant.
We’ve provided five tips to strategically optimize your Super Bowl investment and position your brand
to capture the demand created by your 30-second spot:
1. Ensure 100% Search Coverage, Especially on Mobile
This year more than ever, Super Bowl viewers won’t be glued to their television screens. They’ll be multi-viewing—
using their tablets and smartphones to see online-only camera angles, in-game highlights, live stats, commercial replays
and behind the scenes access. Since last Super Bowl, we’ve seen an explosion in mobile device usage, and smartphones
and tablets were among the top holiday gifts. Super Bowl 2012 is the perfect time for viewers to complement their
TV with tablets and smartphones.
In particular, we expect mobile search usage to spike during the game as viewers seek out their favorite commercials.
This means that brands must support their Super Bowl commercials with paid search campaigns on desktop,
smartphones and tablets. Ensure that you have ample paid search budget allocated to support potentially huge traffic
spikes—Super Bowl commercial keywords are always among the hottest Google search terms during and after the
game. Bid on brand and brand + “Super Bowl commercial” keywords on the engines and YouTube. Align your Super
Bowl search campaign with marketing/PR plans to ensure coverage and ad rank during commercial launch, as well
as two to three weeks post-Super Bowl to extend shelf life. Test your commercial on smartphones and tablets
to ensure an optimal mobile experience for your viewer.
2. Beware of Hijackers
You’re the one investing $3.5 million for your 30-second spot. But your competitors may seek to steal your thunder.
The most notorious example of hijacking occurred in 2006 when Pontiac ran a Super Bowl commercial that encouraged
viewers to Google “Pontiac.” Competitor Mazda took advantage, aggressively bidding on the “Pontiac” keyword and
driving searchers to a landing page that compared Pontiac to Mazda.
To defend against opportunistic hijackers, consider monitoring your brand keywords in real-time during and after your
commercial airs. Trademark monitoring tools, like Performics’ Benchtools, can identify when a competitor is bidding
on your brand keywords. When a hijacker is identified, you must ensure your ad is running above that competitor.
This may involve increasing bid and then easing back after the hijacker is gone to maintain efficiency. Additionally,
consider overpowering hijackers by dominating the search engine results page (SERP) during the Super Bowl.
One way to do this is by organizing your local dealers, franchisees, regional sites, channel partners or affiliates
to bid on your brand name in conjunction, thus pushing potential hijackers down (or off ) the SERP.
performics.com • blog.performics.com • @performics

2. 3. Don’t Forget to Bid on Your Commercial’s Themes
Many Super Bowl advertisers have paid search coverage for brand keywords, but neglect to bid on the themes associated
with their commercials. These themes—especially if they’re unique or creative—can generate massive search volume.
For example, in 2009, Cars.com ran a memorable ad featuring a new character named David Abernathy. David
Abernathy was a mysterious guy; commercial viewers naturally wanted to learn more about him. They turned to
Google for answers. In fact, the “David Abernathy” keyword ranked #1 in Google Search Trends immediately
after the commercial ran:
But Cars.com wasn’t running a paid search ad associated with the “David Abernathy”
keyword, and because the keyword was so new (literally, created the moment the
commercial aired), the commercial was not yet ranking in organic search. Thus,
Cars.com had a captive search audience, but failed to capitalize.
Brainstorm all the potential themes around your commercial that could create buzz.
In addition, use social listening tools or monitor Twitter in real-time as your commercial
airs. People will instantly start buzzing about your commercial’s themes, and these themes
should quickly be added to your paid search campaigns. Additionally, consider bidding on Super Bowl themes that are
unrelated to your commercial, like “Super Bowl Half Time Show.” Monitor the day’s events in real-time on the social
networks to catch wind of big surprises, hot news or mess-ups that could be used as keywords for your search campaigns.
4. Make it Easy for Viewers to Find Your Commercial Online
After your commercial airs on TV, people must be able to easily find it across paid search, organic search and social:
Paid Search
• For search engine queries like “[brand] Super Bowl” and “[brand] commercial” (as well as your commercial’s themes),
lead searchers directly to a page that houses your commercial
— Consider driving commercial-oriented queries directly to your YouTube Channel or Facebook Page,
rather than an owned domain
• For brand queries that don’t indicate clear intent to watch your commercial, include a sitelink in your ad
that allows searchers to directly navigate—if they want—to your commercial
• Employ YouTube paid search ads that lead YouTube searchers to your commercial
Organic Search
• Ready an SEO-optimized landing page that houses your commercial to launch as soon as your commercial airs
• Don’t embed your commercial in Flash on your site; give it a unique URL so that it’s quickly indexed by search engines
• Optimize tags and content on the commercial’s landing page for Super Bowl-oriented queries and commercial themes
Social
• Prominently feature your commercial on your Facebook, Twitter and YouTube pages as soon as it airs. The earlier your
commercial is posted to sites like YouTube, the faster your commercial will appear in the organic search results.
• Create a Twitter hashtag for your commercial and encourage your followers to use it
• Enable your commercial to be easily +1ed and “Liked” to catapult social—and organic search—reach
5. Extend Reach with Contextual Targeting
Consider running display or search ads on content sites pre-Super Bowl to foster anticipation for your commercial.
For example, sites like the Food Network will be hot before the Super Bowl as people seek out party food and recipes.
You could also contextually target articles that feature Super Bowl-related content leading up the game.
For more strategies to multiply the effect of your Super Bowl commercial,
contact your Performics account team today.
cmo briefing
performics.com • blog.performics.com • @performics