Previews of Super Bowl 43 commercials available on YouTube, Superbowl-ads.com

by Helena Sung

Gone are the days when we had to wait until Super Bowl Sunday to be surprised by the most eagerly anticipated television commercials of the year. With the rise of the multi-platform marketing, those days seem as quaint as pantyhose.

Advertisers, eager to drive traffic to their websites, have released teasers and previews of the commercials–and in the case of Pedigree dog food, CareerBuilder.com, GoDaddy.com, and others, have made their entire Super Bowl commercials available on the Internet.

“The Super Bowl is a colossal waste of money if you can’t integrate your events around it,” John Gerzema, chief insights officer at Y&R, a unit of advertising giant WPP Group, told the Associated Press. Super Bowl commercials–at $3 million dollars per 30-second ad–are 20 times more expensive than the average commercial. To make the most of the costly ads, it’s critical to “quickly move from the TV screen to the Internet,” says Gerzema.

Anheuser-Busch has created AB-extras.com so viewers (aged 21 and older) can see behind-the-scene features of its Super Bowl ad. Monster.com, has created a “Department of Fandemonium” contest to hire a winner who will appear at events and get a $100,000 signing bonus.

“At the end of the day, we want to drive traffic to the site,” Ted Gilvar, Monster’s global marketing officer, told the AP. “It’s not just airing the spots and waiting.”
Pedigree, known for making heart-tugging commercials featuring soulful-looking dogs and poignant music, opted to go for no dogs and lots of humor with their big Super Bowl ad that promotes dog adoptions.

You can watch the entire 30-second Pedigree commercial at Superbowl-ads.com.

CareerBuilder.com created a very funny commercial about when you know it’s time to look for a new job:

GoDaddy.com made two commercials with race car driver Danica Patrick and held a contest on its website to see which one–the “Shower” or “Baseball” themed commercial–was the most popular. They will air the winning commercial at the Super Bowl. You can watch both now at their website.

I’m conflicted about the availability of the commercials. I like the instant gratification of watching Super Bowl commercials ahead of time, but I also like surprises. I’m the kid who–in the weeks leading up to Christmas–would shake the gift-wrapped presents under the tree badgering my parents as to what was inside, but not really wanting to know until I opened it myself on the big day.

Lacking all restraint as an adult, I’ve watched the Super Bowl commercials that have been made available ahead of Sunday’s game. (You can watch the previews and Super Bowl 2009 commercials too, on Superbowl-ads.com.) But there’s still lots to look forward to on Super Bowl Sunday–the actual game, Conan O’Brien’s reportedly hilarious ad for Anheuser-Busch, and John Turturo for Heineken.