Super Bowl Commercials 2013: For Search Visibility, Most Brands Bought AdWords Too

Super Bowl commercials aren’t typically about direct purchases. Brands run them to create awareness and buzz and to make us feel all soft and fuzzy towards them. Are advertisers are taking full advantage of the furious searching that happens post-game? Both Google Trends and Yahoo data show that even as we turned to Twitter in droves, we also, as in past years, flocked to the search engines.

Last year brought a record high of brands advertising their own websites. This year, that trend was down, replaced by hashtags. If the goal of a Super Bowl is to get people talking about you, how better to encourage that than to give a little nudge and a way for those talking to find each other.

But, brand confusion crept in online. Many online versions of the commercials sent viewers to different places than the TV versions, and the paid search ads sent searchers somewhere different still. Several brands had one owned site ranking in unpaid results, two different sites showing up in paid search results (at the same time!), and a different site still advertised in the ad.

This year, those searching for Super Bowl advertisers could mostly find them! The majority of brands bought paid search ads for their names, and half bought paid search ads for their advertised taglines. Every single advertiser other than Fast and Furious 6 had a website that ranked in the unpaid search results.