Adobe Sees Super Bowl Mobile Video Doubling

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A Super Bowl commercial pays off in web traffic, too. But cash-poor advertisers don't need to drop $3.8 million to capitalize on football frenzy. Adobe said that mobile video viewing will double on Super Bowl Sunday this year.

First, Adobe said that the value of a Super Bowl ad extends far beyond the live broadcast exposure. Super Bowl advertisers will see a 20 percent increase in web traffic on the day of the game, according to an analysis by the Adobe Digital index.

"That's coming from millions of visit and shows a very dramatic spike when television advertisers on the Super Bowl see increases in visits on their web properties," says Tamara Gaffney, senior marketing manager, Adobe Digital Index.

To understand the halo effect, the Adobe Digital Index team aggregated data from across Adobe's cloud marketing platforms, analyzed 1.4 billion videos for 10 large sporting events and compared them to typical non-event days. Because close to half of Super Bowl advertisers in 2011 and 2012 were Adobe customers, the team had a large enough sample to aggregate the data without revealing customer information, Gaffney says.

Moreover, the bump in visits will last about a week. However, due to the increasingly common practice of marketers revealing their TV spots online before game day, some of the increase in web traffic has moved to the pre-game week. Adobe said this indicates that the previews were more likely to pull traffic forward than increase the overall impact.

"All of that digital marketing that was going on to preview or create some additional drama around the Super Bowl television spot was contributing to more of an increase in traffic than it had earlier in 2011. It looks like it was effective in driving more traffic," Gaffney says.

Mobile media, with its lower CPMs and attractive demographics, represents an increasing opportunity for advertisers on game day, Gaffney said. The analysis found that the percentage of online videos accessed by tablet and mobile phones reaches 16 percent on a day with a major sporting event, representing a 100 percentage increase compared to a typical day in sports.

Advertisers that can't put down $3 million can still get a marketing moment out of the Super Bowl, Gaffney says. "We think going digitally is a good option, especially in mobile video. We know tablet users are more affluent, and they tend to complete more purchases online. That's a great audience to reach if you can't afford the Big Kahuna of advertising."