Super Bowl XXXIV became the Dot.Com bowl with 17 of 36 companies sponsoring the game being related to the Internet.
ABC chose to weed out the fly-by-nights by insisting the Dot.Com advertisers pay up front. Some Dot.Coms backed out, banking on paying the hefty price tag after they reaped the benefits.
The onslaught of Internet advertisers were caused by Super Bowl XXXIII successors, Monster.com and Hotjobs.com. Monster's traffic boosted 450 percent just 24 hours after the game. Hotjobs saw its traffic rise from 600,000 a month to 1.7 million.
But most of the 17 online companies that took part in Super Bowl XXXIV were sacked by each other. They all tried to be cute and funny without telling viewers the benefits of visiting their Web site.
Lifeminders.com had the most simple and possibly even the most effective commercial. They posted their Web address in black type on a yellow background.
Some sites scored big by advertising their Dot.Com. Monster's "Road Not Taken" resulted in an 80 percent increase in traffic. WebMD.com's ad featured an unstoppable Muhammed Ali, provoking an 18 percent increase in visitors. Autotrader.com spiked a 414 percent increase in visitors just seconds after their commercial aired.
The Dot.Com losers of Super Bowl XXXIV resulted in two Web sites folding after spending millions of dollars on advertising without yielding measurable results. Epidemic.com's traffic increased from 9,000 to 30,000 but that wasn't enough to keep them on the information superhighway.
LastMinuteTravel.com is still around, though. Their spot aired immediately after the Super Bowl and resulted in 27,000 hits, up from 6,000. But Netpliance.com didn't have any measurable traffic before their spot aired. Their traffic increased to 8,000 visitors.
The Dot.Com advertisers of Super Bowl XXXV will have to wait and see if their ad dollars are well spent. With only three Internet companies onboard this year, at least they won't have to worry about other Dot.Com clutter.
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