Advertisers fall short of digital touchdown for Super Bowl ads

More than half of the advertisers who forked out at least $US4.5million ($5.7 million) on a 30 second spot during this year’s Super Bowl have missed out on making the most of their ad dollars by not properly optimising their website to coordinate with their ad campaigns, according to research released this week.

Even many of the best Super Bowl ads of 2015 failed to take advantage of a fully integrated digital campaign, with only around one-third of advertisers optimising mobile screens to properly display products.

A report by advertising firm wywy studied 56 Super Bowl ads from this year, checking search results for brand and product-related keywords, as well as advertisers’ homepages for the product seen in the TV commercial on desktop computers and on mobile devices.

The study found only 45% of advertisers showed a clearly visible reference to the advertised product on the homepage of its website, while 18% did not connect their website with the Super Bowl ad message at all.

Only 38% prominently displayed the product on the mobile version of its homepage and a further 20% neglected to connect their mobile website to the Super Bowl ad message.

“Many brands invested a significant portion of their annual marketing budgets on TV advertising during yesterday’s game to reach the more than 100 million viewers with their message, yet they are still falling short on the basic marketing channels such as search and their own website,” said wywy co-founder Andreas Schroeter.