MVP Poll Sends Traffic to SuperBowl.com

Daily traffic to SuperBowl.com by home Internet users spiked 269 percent on Sunday, led by the fourth quarter rush to vote for MVP, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Daily traffic to the official Super Bowl Web site peaked on Sunday with 359,000 unique visitors as compared to 97,000 visitors the day before. Fans watching the broadcast were prompted to visit SuperBowl.com during the end of the game to vote for the MVP. Sixteen percent of all visitors logged on to vote for the game’s most valuable player.

“As the Web and TV exist as disparate forces in today’s global media stage, it takes a strong call to action to transform viewers into surfers,” said Allen Weiner, vice president of analytical services at NetRatings. “At the start of the fourth quarter, CBS urged viewers to go to the Web to vote for the Super Bowl’s Most Valuable Player. The Web’s ability to give fans the opportunity to cast their cyber ballots obviously hit a nerve and sets the tone for other similar TV-to-Web interactions.”

This year’s Super Bowl also saw a dramatic shift in the composition of its advertisers when compared to last year’s Super Bowl. The 2001 game showed a significant decrease in dot-com advertisers. This year the number of digital economy advertisers dropped 40 percent, while traditional brick and mortar companies surged 18 percent.

“This is in line with the overall advertising trends we are seeing in the marketplace, where digital economy companies are slowing down, but traditional brick and mortar advertisers are picking up the pace,” Weiner said.