When I think of the Super Bowl I think of three things – pigs in a blanket, $5.00 squares, and big-budget TV ads. And while many eyes are on what Bob Parsons is go-daddy go-ing to do this year, I am most fascinated by the new consumer-generated campaigns from Doritos, Chevrolet and the NFL itself. These new campaigns are turning over the advertising reigns to consumers; I can’t help but wonder whether marketers are tapping into the wisdom of the crowds, or are simply hoping that consumers can succeed where their agencies could not.

The three companies have taken notably different approaches, with each strategy yielding different outcomes. Here are my early reviews of each campaign:

• The NFL’s “Best Super Bowl Commercial Ever. Seriously.” promotion attracted only 2% of the 5 million people who visited NFL.com in the first two weeks of January. Gino’s audition is great, but the NFL left the audience on the table on this one. Seriously.

• Doritos’ all-online “Crash the Super Bowl” contest encouraged consumers to produce, submit, and vote on their favorite spots. More than 125,000 people visited the site during the first two weeks of January, 10 times as many people than visited Doritos.com. Kudos to Doritos, this promotion sets the standard for how to get the most out of Super Bowl spending.

• The “Chevy Super Bowl College Ad Challenge” just launched, but the early signs are that online interest in the promotion is lagging. Virtually no one in our consumer panel has visited the CBS or Chevy micro-sites thus far in January. Without an online community surrounding the promotion, it will be hard for Chevy to match Doritos.

So Doritos is the clear pre-game winner thus far. Perhaps Doritos has cracked the code on how to use consumer-generated commercials to stay strong amongst all the ad hype by having regular people snack strong on their self-made commercials and, hopefully, their chips. Stay tuned for our post-game report on Super Bowl advertising where we will report on consumers’ favorite ads and which sites garnered the most attention following the big game.

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• nfl.com
• doritos.com

Last week Stephen DiMarco posted some impressive examples of how Compete data could be used to track transaction data across multiple retailer sites. While I’m sure daytraders and hedge fund managers found the information fascinating, maybe even profitable, I’m not sure it can help someone like me. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m a buy and hold kind of guy when it comes to investing. In fact over 95% of my investment strategy consists of dollar-cost averaging — I put the same amount of money into my Vanguard 500 Index Fund month in and month out.

But I think I may have found a way to help me predict how my investments will fare. I used Compete data to measure traffic to TheStreet.com compared to the performance of the S&P 500 over the past 18 months. Check out the results:

I don’t know if it’s a cause or an effect, but it sure seems like there’s a high correlation between unique visits to TheStreet.com and the value of the S&P 500. I think this one might require some further analysis. If it turns out that the results are predictive, maybe I’ll be able to alter my investment strategy. Booyah indeed.

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• thestreet.com

The holiday season is supposed to be a time when people come together. But for lonely singles, it can also highlight the fact that they are, well, lonely and single. Whether it’s for a New Years date, a resolution to finally find a soul mate, or even pressure from family to settle down, online dating services see a ramping up of activity, starting around Christmas. How does this trend look, and what does it mean for the big players in the industry?

The chart above ranks online dating services by member activity, which was described in more detail last month. The site rankings are relatively unchanged from last month. However, in general Member activity increased.

• Match.com moved up one spot in rank. While it’s not shown in this chart, total traffic to the site grew more than 50% from November to December, which could have resulted in new membership.
• Yahoo Personals member visits increased by 13% from November to December, capturing the top spot, and the biggest change from the previous month.
• eHarmony member activity actually declined from November. Perhaps their compatibility service is too good at finding matches?
• Sticking with it’s provocative ad campaign on social networking sites, True still hasn’t been able to convert its heavy traffic (nearly no change from the previous month) into member activity.

How big was the holiday ramp up this year? Looking at total weekly traffic to mainstream dating sites, it’s apparent that interest in online dating services starts to grow right around Christmas. These sites saw about a 13% change in visitors and visits (a proxy for activity) since the week of the December 10th.

‘Tis the season to be in a relationship I guess.

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• TRUE
• Match
• Mate1
• Singlesnet
• eHarmony
• American Singles
• eCrush
• Plenty of Fish
• Gay.com

For many people this past holiday season, a next-generation video game console was the must have gift. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 enjoyed a breakout sophomore year, outselling both the Wii and the PS3 combined during the holidays. The latter, of course, faced major supply shortages leaving one to only wonder how many additional units Nintendo and Sony might have sold if sufficient quantities were available to meet demand.

The following chart presents Compete’s estimate of weekly in-market video console demand based on the number of U.S. consumers observed shopping online for each console.

Key findings from our analysis of video game console shoppers in December:

• The Wii, the clear underdog with its relatively modest specs, surprised many skeptics by sustaining its post-launch interest and outselling the PS3. This won’t come as a surprise to anyone who tried in vain to find a Wii at anywhere close to its suggested retail price.
• The PS3 was a quick flash in the pan that fizzled on the backs of negative publicity, its lofty price and supply shortages. After only a few weeks on the market, the PS3 was attracting barely as many shoppers as the year-old Xbox 360.
• Xbox 360 demand spiked at the start of the holiday shopping season thanks in part to a highly publicized sale on Amazon, spill-over interest in the Wii and PS3, and the introduction of the smash hit Gears of War.
• With Xbox 360 and PS3 demand now running in lock-step, it will be difficult for Sony to gain ground on Microsoft due to a perceived price disparity between the two consoles and Microsoft’s broader game catalog.

Compete also analyzed the degree to which each console’s shoppers considered the rival systems in November and December.

Of particular note:

• There was a clear shift away from the PS3 in December as Wii and Xbox 360 shoppers considered it less and PS3 shoppers considered rivals more.
• Wii shoppers are less likely than Xbox 360 and PS3 shoppers to consider the rival systems. This can be attributed to the Wii’s lower price and broader target market. Regardless of the reason, this loyalty is great news for Nintendo.

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• wii.com
• xbox.com
• playstation3.com

America is about to welcome arguably the most well-known athletic superstar in the world. The 31 year old former England captain, David Beckham, recently signed a five year contract with LA Galaxy worth $250M. His current contract with Real Madrid expires on June 30th, but Beckham is not expected to join LA Galaxy before August. We explored to what extent Bechkam’s presence will increase soccer interest in the U.S..

The volume of unique visitors to Major League Soccer’s website has been growing slowly since 2001. However, these numbers significantly lag behind the respective interest in America’s major sports. On a relative basis, MLS is to baseball as Carrot Top is to Sacha Cohen – not nearly as popular.

Will Beckham make the difference? Can Beckham’s marketing potential take the MLS from the basement to the dinner table of the major sports market in the U.S.?

The winter months are the off-season for the MLS and are annually the low point in traffic to its official site; yet once the breaking news was released on January 12th, traffic to mlsnet.com increased by 200%. More striking was the jump in traffic to the Galaxy’s team page - 2000%.

It should come as no surprise that people jumped online to find the details of the Beckham deal. Beckham is considered an idol to thousands of soccer fans, not to mention millions of adoring girls. The impact of having such an extraordinary player with so much star power should have a great effect on the LA Galaxy and the MLS.

Will Americans’ soccer interest ever reach that of MLB, NBA or NFL? Hmmmm, can we afford twenty more Beckhams? Is Pele’ available?

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• mlsnet.com

Update: Click here for January 2007 Update

Time is a limited resource.. As much as we hate to admit it, we each only have 24 hours on any given day to ‘do things’. In December 2006, we had 44,640 minutes to do whatever our hearts desired — be it sleep, eat, watch TV, jump rope, or spend time online.

Since we each have a fixed amount of time in a given day/week/month/lifetime, we all probably (I know I do!) want to spend it wisely. As such, when we are online we tend to spend more time on sites that are worthy of our attention. After all, who wants to waste time? So, the big question is, where DO we spend all our time online? Which websites are more successful in capturing our attention compared to others?

Take a look at the chart below:

Key Observations:

• Only 20 domains capture a whopping 39% of all our time spent online.
• Only 2.1% of our time is spent on Google.com (includes all sub-domains).
  • This surprised me somewhat, given how much I *think* I use Google everyday. I still think I use Google quite a bit, but now realize I don’t spend much time on the site itself. Google is NOT a portal with loads of content. Gmail and Google News are the only services that I spend considerable time on. Search, Maps, etc are quick look-up utilities, as they should be.
  • Even if one adds time spent on YouTube.com (#12) to Google.com’s (#5) tally — it still only adds up to 2.7%, and is well below time spent on Ebay.com (#4).
• MySpace (#1) is miles ahead of Yahoo! (#2), however Yahoo! impresses. Yahoo holds a significant lead over Google+YouTube.com, MSN+Live.com and AOL+AIM.com. Yahoo simply needs to merge with MSN to take #1 (hint hint)
• The presence of Adultfriendfinder.com on this list is surprising, but hey, everyone needs a friend, or two!

Update: We’ve released the Compete Attention 200™ ! (Top 200 domains) - 02/05/2007

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• adultfriendfinder.com
• aim.com
• amazon.com
• aol.com
• bankofamerica.com
• craigslist.com
• ebay.com
• facebook.com
• go.com
• google.com
• live.com
• mapquest.com
• msn.com
• myspace.com
• neopets.com
• pogo.com
• walmart.com
• wikipedia.org
• yahoo.com
• youtube.com