With all that being said, is it really worth all those dollars? With the proliferation of social media, ads are now aired in full online before they hit the big screen on game day. If the majority of the audience has already seen the commercials, do brands and companies need to spend the millions of dollars in airing it during the big game?

Moreover, with online media, campaigns and advertisements experience a much longer shelf life. In the past, once the commercials aired, that was it – no revisiting or replaying, no sharing. Now, with the popularity of social media and the ever-growing online video platform YouTube, advertisements live on for days, months, and even years. As such, the success of an ad relies not only on the viewership on game-day, but on the virality of the ad – How many times was it viewed? How many times was it mentioned on Twitter? How many shares did it receive?

In recent years, some of the most successful ad campaigns relied on social media. Nike’s “Write The Future” ad aired during the 2010 FIFA World Cup and relied on a heavy social media/viral push in the months leading up to the championship game. In a twist of convention, Nike isn’t an official sponsor of FIFA World Cup – Adidas is. According to statistics from Wieden+Kennedy (the agency that produced the campaign), Nike generated 40 million + online views of their 3-minute spot, 1.9 billion impressions on Facebook, and their Facebook Fan Page experienced an increase of 336 per cent in Likes. Above all that, Nike captured 30 per cent of the brand buzz – double that of Adidas.

From Dave Thier of Forbes: “A stat like $3.5 million for 30 seconds of airtime may see a serious hit in the future as advertisers realize that the internet can yield just as big an audience as football without having to go through NBC.”

Below, we take a look at some of the 2012 Super Bowl advertisements that have been generating buzz in the past few weeks and offer our own critique of their potential success and virality:

Honda CR-V: Matthew Broderick “Matthew’s Day Off”

Car manufacturers will appear to be taking over our television sets this weekend as commercial after commercial will be turbocharged and performance-inspired. Honda is releasing their newest model of the CR-V and hoping to take us back to our days of bowl cuts and Club Monaco sweaters. Using the clever appeal of the ever popular ‘80s movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, the commercial stars Matthew Broderick as he takes a day off from his acting responsibilities. The commercial revisits memorable scenes from the movie and even ties in a Chinese New Year angle.

For a social tie-in, Honda has a Leap List Facebook app on their Page encouraging users to create a bucket list of activities they want to complete during the leap year. Nothing to note on Twitter besides their official hashtag: #dayoff.

• Our take: Is it memorable? No, there’s nothing humourous or riské and nothing to drive us to pass it on to our friends. Moreover, the entire ad spot has been aired online. Viral success? The ad has been on YouTube for four days and it already has nearly 434,000 views. Chances of me taking a bathroom break when this spot airs on game day? 100 per cent.

Volkswagen: “The Bark Side”

Volkswagen is given top marks in my books for not revealing the entire ad prior to the big game – you’re paying millions of dollars for a 60-second spot, take advantage of it. By producing a commercial for their commercial, VW cleverly leaves us wanting more by peaking our curiousity for what’s to come. The fan favourite The Force from last year’s Super Bowl was a huge hit that attracted nearly 50 million views online and this year VW builds on that with their The Bark Side commercial for a commercial. The dogs bark through Darth Vader’s theme, a.k.a. The Imperial Death March, and that’s it.

• Our take: Unlike the other car commercials we touch on in this post, there isn’t even a hint of a car or a mention of horsepower in this commercial and, ultimately, that’s what the Super Bowl viewer wants: to be entertained. VW gets top marks because they don’t reveal the actual advertisement online, leaving us curious and wanting to view more. Proof of their success: the teaser already has over 10 million hits on YouTube. Above all that, who doesn’t love cute dogs?

Hyundai

As if we weren’t getting enough of car advertisements, Hyundai decides to hit us with five advertisements on game day. Five. The theme of the advertisements is performance and follows a very patriotic American theme. From a man performing chest compressions on his unconscious boss and the stars and stripes forever, to a racing cheetah and the Rocky theme song, the commercials, according to Inside Line (and we couldn’t agree more), are “all over the map creatively.” Of the five commercials, the only one that has Super Bowl potential is the “All For One” ad that scored the coveted pre-kick time slot. With the Rocky theme song and over 200 “actual” Hyundai team members, the ad provides a decent mix of random humour and pop culture appeal.

• Our take: Hyundai should have saved the tens of millions of dollars spent on the five ads. There is little to no social media back-up except for a handful of Facebook video posts and tweets. Their only possible saving grace is the “All For One” spot.

Coca-Cola: the polar bears

The Coca-Cola polar bears are throwing a game day party and they want us to join! Viewing from the comforts of their “snowfa”, the bears will be streamed live on the Coke Polar Bowl microsite and Coca-Cola is encouraging fans to RSVP to the party.

Coca-Cola is appealing to the nostalgia of the brand and bringing out the bears that we have all come to know, love, and associate with the brand. During the game, Coca-Cola will roll out two ads: a 30-second spot in the first quarter introducing the bears and a 60-second second quarter ad that will be a game-time call depending on how the game unfolds on the real-life field.

Moreover, Coca-Cola smartly extends the campaign across digital and mobile with the Coke Polar Bowl microsite. On game day, a live-stream will show the bears on their snowfa, allowing fans to chat with them live during the game. Additionally, rich-media banners will show the bears reacting to the game and the commercials as they play out. Twitter and Facebook will see Coca-Cola writing notes to fans and sending out clips extracted from the live stream. For a social good touch, Coke has partnered with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and is donating $1 to every event RSVP on Facebook.

• Our take: The ads themselves aren’t memorable. While they are cute and have a nostalgic appeal, there’s nothing there to encourage anyone to share it or watch it more than once. Additionally, the ad doesn’t appeal to the target audience – online interactions seem more appealing to younger children than to 18-34 year old men noshing on hot wings and beer. Coca-Cola’s success will lie in their strong social media tie-in with the microsite and the live-stream.

H&M: David Beckham underwear line

In the ad’s YouTube description, H&M claims that he is “sporting various pieces from the new collection.” I don’t know about you, but I really only see one piece.

• Our take: Sex appeal. Done.

At Invoke, we’re excited to see another year wrapping up. For us, this marks the end of the year as our office is closed for the holidays at 5 p.m. Friday (Dec. 23). We re-open Jan. 3 and will immediately be jumping into all sorts of amazing and challenging client projects and internal products. Clients with active projects can make arrangements with their account managers for assistance during the winter break.

It has been a busy year for us. We launched the Eat St. mobile app and the Food.ee web app. We had a great time with VH1’s Single Ladies memelabs contest, and were gratified to work with IAVA, the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and Fuck Cancer. We built apps for Men’s Health and the Urbanathalon and the Onion, a Facebook contest for Peter Lehmann Wines (just one of our many great Facebook app clients) and developed social and digital strategies for 7-Eleven and Los Angeles Newspaper Group. There was a website for AG Hair and a contest for State FarmFriday Night Feats. This is just a snippet of the great clients and projects we’ve been involved with in 2011. It’s been busy.

We’ve also been growing like mad, outgrowing our office space, moving into another and nearly outgrowing that one as well.

Our New York office  expanded and we also acquired Vancouver based digital company Thirdi.

What happens next? Keep checking out the Invoke blog, Twitter feed and subscribe to our newsletter for all the latest developments.

Best wishes from all of us at Invoke! Have a safe and happy holidays.

See everyone Jan. 3, 2012. Until then, check out the best memes from 2011.

Listen up Los Angeles, LA.com is giving away tickets to see Jay-Z and Kanye West in concert, Dec.13 at the Staples Center. This is your chance to win free tickets to see the Watch the Throne tour! Our pals at LA.com Deals are running a contest that we think you’ll love.

We’re working with LA.com and Deals.LA.com, (which is not only has hyper local daily deals), but they also have monthly contests too. Last month it was Katy Perry tickets, *swoon. This month: Jay-Z and Kanye West tickets.

It’s not just two nose bleed tickets either. No siree. Deals.LA.com is hooking you and 12 friends up with a luxury suite at Staples Center. And all you have to do is register to win. The contest is on now until Nov. 30, so register soon.

We also recommend you share this contest with your friends. Because if they win they’ll be obliged to take you, because you were the one that told them about the sweepstakes in the first place! Right?

Register here for your chance to win.

You can also check out LA.com’s Facebook and Twitter profiles for deals, events, and news in and around L.A.

Creating the perfect HootSuite dashboard is an art. It’s a process involving choosing keywords to track, search terms, finding lists, and building lists, in order to get the most out of social media updates from around the world. At a glance, HootSuite’s dashboard organizes the noise of Twitter. It automatically refreshes, it shows conversations, it gives you a quick view of images without clicking on links, etc.

Below, I share my top 5 must have Twitter streams from my Twitter tab. I also have an Inbox/Outbox tab, a Facebook tab, Linkedin tab, and Fun tab, for all the other social profiles HootSuite organizes, but that’s another post. I will admit, I do not have a MySpace tab.

It’s important to set up a dashboard to best suit your needs. Are you just reading what others are saying, or are you actively using Twitter to interact with friends, companies and power users? As a community manager, I use Twitter to watch what people are saying about Invoke, its products, its clients and its projects. I also use Twitter to follow breaking news stories, a select number of friends’ tweets, and any RT to win campaigns. What?! I like free stuff too.

1) @Mentions
This is a standard stream to have, but one of the most important. Quickly see who has included your Twitter handle in a tweet. Collaborate with team members and see if someone has already responded. Never miss mention again. You can easily respond, RT or DM, favourite, email, and assign a message to a team member. For a wider range of mentions, consider create a search column with your brands keywords and URL, which you can also share with a team to track who has replied to the mentions.

2) An influencers Twitter list
I have a tab dedicated to digital lists that I follow. However, I recommend following and monitoring your industry news in at least one stream in your dashboard. By following lists influencers have created you don’t have to spend time creating one from scratch and you will be at the forefront of industry news. A quick Google search with your industry’s keywords will bring up loads of lists to choose from. Keywords like tech, news, magazine’s, design, agency creative, celebrities (just kidding). Find and follow a list then add it to your HootSuite dashboard.

3) The people you work with stream
Never miss an inside joke, where the boss is, a tip from a guy in a different department, etc. Create and manage a Team Twitter list to track real updates of the people you work with. Include all your company’s twitter profiles, products, and people. It great way to track what tweets are going out, give feedback on the laguage being used, and again at a glance, know what everyone is reading / sharing / doing!

4) Clients
Create a stream of your clients Twitter profiles. You can create the stream by draging and dropping or by keyword. A keyword stream will act as a newsfeed, as it will help you stay on top of what they are up to, who they are talking to, what language they are using, what others are saying to them etc. It’s also a huge time saver for finding content to post. You use the stream to write tweets by RT’ing, replying to, and thanking them.

5) RT to win OR comment to win
Ok ok it’s not a must have stream, but it is a great one to have! Create a search stream with “RT to win” OR “comment to win” and just browse some of the campaigns out there. We have had several people in the office win something, and that’s fun!

This list is not complete. What streams do you have in the first tab of your HootSuite, the ones you go to daily?