Brief:

• Amazon's TV commercial starring comedian Ellen DeGeneres and actress Portia De Rossi is generating the most reactions on social media among ad teasers before the Super Bowl, per a ranking by iSpot.tv. The commercial titled "Temperature" generated a 16.7% digital share of voice, more than 373,000 online views and more than 178,000 social actions as of press time. ISpot defines an online view as total Facebook views and earned online views from YouTube and iSpot.tv where users explicitly requested to view the ad.
• Porsche's extended Super Bowl spot titled "The Heist" was in second place with 13.7% of online activity, including more than 49,000 social actions and 8.3 million online views, per iSpot.tv. The website said that Secret's ad titled "Super Bowl Ad: The Secret Kicker" was in third place with 13.1% of online activity, including 9.5 million online views and more than 27,000 social actions.
• Hyundai's Boston-themed ad titled "Smaht Pahk" was in fourth place with 11% of online activity, and Pringles' "The Infinite Dimensions of Rick and Morty" had nearly 6% of online activity.

Insight:

Amazon is generating online buzz with a series of teaser ads that hint at a big announcement for Alexa, the ecommerce giant's virtual assistant that has been featured in its Super Bowl ads for the past four years. This year, the theme of its teaser ads is, "What did people do before Alexa?" The campaign has included six-second spots showing misspellings of "Alexa" in old needlepoint work and medieval books. The 30-second teaser ad starring DeGeneres and De Rossi is consistent with past Super Bowl ads for Alexa in featuring celebrities.

By releasing teaser ads before the Super Bowl, brands can leverage the publicity for the game and reach online audiences who watch linear TV less frequently. Overall, though, iSpot reports that fewer Super Bowl ad teasers have been released in advance of game day this year compared with previous years. Despite this, social actions such as sharing and commenting are up from 2019.

Broadcast viewership of the Super Bowl has declined in the past four years, a loss that's partly explained by a shift in viewing to streaming platforms. Last year, CBS broadcast the game and provided free streaming access on various digital platforms. The network saw 31% growth in streaming viewers to 2.6 million from the prior year, TechCrunch reported. The increase may have partly offset the 5% decline in TV viewership to 98.2 million, as measured by Nielsen.

iSpot.tv's ranking of buzz-generating Super Bowl teasers shows how brands are gearing up their marketing for the big game. Fox this month added more commercial time to its Super Bowl LIV broadcast amid heavy demand from advertisers, following an earlier announcement that it had sold out its ad inventory. The additional slots will be flexible "floaters" that appear during an unplanned break in gameplay.