News coverage of Super Bowl ads reaches 750 million viewers

In 2008, news coverage of the ads broadcast on the world's most-watched sporting event reached an all-time high, with 6,846 broadcast news stories about the ads in the weeks before and after the event, according to an analysis by Cision's broadcast monitoring group.

Cision estimates that news stories on 34 advertisers' Super Bowl XLII ad campaigns this year reached more than 750 million viewers, beyond the game-day audience for the ads themselves. These broadcast news placements provided tens of millions of dollars worth of free publicity to the advertisers, even before additional valuable exposure in print and online news media.

Pepsi and Budweiser garnered the lion's share of broadcast news coverage of all the Super Bowl XLII ads, with 1,945 new stories aired on Pepsi's ads and 1,122 on Budweiser's from December 1, 2007, to February 10,
2008. Coca Cola, Victoria's Secret and Diet Pepsi rounded out the top five in total broadcast news media stories on the ads. Cision also said Pepsi, Coca Cola and Victoria's Secret led the brands benefiting the most from
promotion of their ads prior to the Super Bowl, with significant broadcast news coverage of their ads even before Super Bowl Sunday. Have an opinion on this article? Post your comment below.