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Rafat Ali of lists the multitude of platforms on which Super Bowl advertisements will be viewable following the game, including mobile, digital cable, and on-demand. Plus, MSN is going to stream them and Yahoo archive them online, while Heavy already offers the (very funny) “banned” ads. As this USA Today article states, “Super Bowl ads will be anywhere you want them to be.”

This treatment is a great example of the potential of how widely dispersed digital microchunked content can spread if producers are willing to untether it from restrictions to time-, place-, and platform-shifting. Of course, the content producers in this case are the advertisers (a great example of advertorial content), and perhaps this case of Super Bowl ads is unique. But I am left thinking that there are some lessons which could be gleaned here.

While the above is notable, the most interesting thing (in the context of “digital change”) I’ve found in the build-up to this weekend’s game is the number of microchunked video clips people have forwarded to me via e-mail from my hometown of Pittsburgh. Whether it’s the newest version of the classic Here We Go song on YouTube or a local KDKA broadcast of the rally today in downtown Pittsburgh, these clips have been spreading like wildfire among Pittsburghers. It’s amazing to see uncontained digital video content spread.

I find myself agreeing with a lot of the things that Fred Wilson has been writing on the subject of rich-media content recently, including a nice soundbite this week, “Bits are bits. They are going to get widely distributed... That’s how this medium works.”

I am looking forward to watching the ads again, game highlights, and hopefully Pittsburgh receiving the Vince Lombardi trophy - when I want, where I want, and how I want.

It's Not Just Fun and Games
Chris Gilmer over at the Search Engine Marketing Weblog wrote about Blingo over the weekend. The year-old search engine delivers Google results, but then also randomly picks users as winners – so every time you search vpn app for android you have a chance to win. Chris writes, “I’m still not convinced whether I like this or not. It’s cool that they offer prizes for searching, but is it really necessary?”

While I was at About.com, my team ran a number of promotions both for our online and e-mail newsletter properties, as well as for those within greater Primedia’s. And the basic lesson which we learned is that online contests and promotions work. Consumers will respond to online contests, if architected correctly, in a very strong and meaningful way.

However, I would make one distinction with the implementation of contests/giveaways, which is between those for attracting and those for sustaining users. My experience is that promotions of this kind are better at the former. With a perceived value in participating in contests, people are more likely to try a new service that they haven’t in the past. They provide an extra nudge to push through any friction points inhibiting users from being attracted to and taking the desired action. In fact, in the race to acquire audience and users for Web 2.0 offerings, I think that contests are an underutilized tool which would help these offerings leap from “digerati-facing” to truly “consumer-facing” services.

On the other side, using contests to sustain usage is more difficult. Over time, as users fail to win prizes, the perceived value of a promotion wanes, even though the economic expected value of the offer remains constant.

Consequently, the challenge for Blingo (as I see it) isn’t necessarily attracting users (which they’ve accomplished successfully), but rather maintaining consistent usage over the long term when their offering is commoditized. Perhaps other emerging web services which do have a differentiated offering, but are struggling for a true consumer audience, could employ some of these tactics to broaden their exposure.

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Re: Super Bowl, Super Digital Media, and the Super Steelers

by Martha Martha (27.01.2023)

Hello, Super Bowl fans. This is a post written by a former athlete and current digital media professional. It's a unique position to be in when you are able to combine two passions in life. I prefer to check... Read more

Re: Super Bowl, Super Digital Media, and the Super Steelers

by Marcus Kent (07.02.2023)

The Super Bowl is the biggest annual sporting event in the United States and one of the most-watched television events worldwide. With the rise of digital media, the Super Bowl has become an even more... Read more