Super Bowl Ad Watch: Top Spots
Yeah, we know, the commercials were better than the game again this year, even though it was a pretty good Super Bowl for Colts fans at least. There were a lot more HD spots in this year's game compared to last year's, too.
Context & Ripple Effects
The 2007 game drew its usual 'commercials beat the football' verdict, but the interesting signal this year sits around the broadcast: syndicated trackers had already crowned Doritos' consumer-made spot a winner before kickoff, based purely on pre-air online buzz — evidence that ad performance was starting to be scored before a single spot aired.
Two gaps defined the rest of the conversation: Search Engine Watch noted most advertisers still failed to show a URL on screen, and Gizmodo's own count confirmed a marked jump in HD-format spots over the 2006 game — production values rising faster than basic web integration.
First-order effects
- Advertisers who bought the roughly $2.6M slots were judged within hours by online echo rather than overnight ratings alone, with Cymfony's tracking putting Doritos' fan-submitted ad ahead of professionally produced rival spots before kickoff.
- Brands that aired HD-ready creative captured the growing HDTV household base, while those still running standard-definition spots paid premium prices for visibly softer inventory.
Second-order effects
- The missing-URL problem Search Engine Watch flagged routes every curious viewer straight into a search engine instead of a brand-controlled page, making paid search the de facto landing channel for Super Bowl spend and pushing advertisers to buy their own brand terms for game night.
- Doritos' win with consumer-generated creative pressures other snack and beverage advertisers to open their own submission contests, shifting agency work toward curating amateur entries rather than producing everything in-house.
Third-order effects
- If pre-air buzz tracking (Cymfony's approach) and post-air online pickup become the standard scorecard, the 30-second airing turns into just one node in a campaign whose center of gravity moves off broadcast — a structural shift in how networks can price the game's inventory.
- The steady climb in HD spots points toward HD becoming table stakes for national event advertising, raising production cost floors and squeezing smaller advertisers out of the marquee slots.
The trend: Super Bowl advertising is being repositioned from a single-night broadcast buy into a multi-week digital campaign scored by online buzz, search behavior, and format quality.