Five days after Super Bowl XLVI, here's our (probably) last word on this year's commercials—a trove of data on how the spots are doing on YouTube.
Partnering with Adweek for this Super Bowl rewind feature, YouTube says searches for the term "super bowl" on its site were 156 percent higher this year than in 2011. Remarkably, Super Bowl ads—either the teasers or the full spots—were watched more than 30 million times on YouTube before this year's game even kicked off. That's a testament to just how many advertisers went for the pre-game buzz this time around by posting content earlier than ever.
On game day, the most popular commercials in terms of Google searches were ads from Acura, GoDaddy and M&M's, The Avengers movie trailer and Chrysler's spot featuring Clint Eastwood.
Then there's the million-view club. Twenty-seven spots (teasers or full ads) reached at least 1 million views within 72 hours of the end of Super Bowl XLVI. You can see those commercials below, from lowest view count to highest. That's followed by a lengthier chart of view counts for the top YouTube clips posted by Super Bowl advertisers through Feb. 8.
Created: 2/5/12
Views through Feb. 8: 1,102,316
Created: 1/24/12
Views through Feb. 8: 1,160,126
Created: 1/27/12
Views through Feb. 8: 1,431,266
Created: 2/2/12
Views through Feb. 8: 1,442,659
Created: 2/5/12
Views through Feb. 8: 1,468,332
Created: 2/1/12
Views through Feb. 8: 1,570,989
Created: 1/24/12
Views through Feb. 8: 1,655,482
Created: 1/30/12
Views through Feb. 8: 1,664,091
Created: 1/25/12
Views through Feb. 8: 1,666,374
Created: 1/26/12
Views through Feb. 8: 2,032,750
Created: 2/1/12
Views through Feb. 8: 2,044,290
Created: 2/1/12
Views through Feb. 8: 2,053,131
Created: 1/19/12
Views through Feb. 8: 2,351,666
Created: 2/3/12
Views through Feb. 8: 2,948,079
Created: 1/31/12
Views through Feb. 8: 3,004,785
Created: 1/24/12
Views through Feb. 8: 3,052,403
Created: 2/1/12
Views through Feb. 8: 3,094,956
