Superbowl commercials and vanity #s

Almost two out of three superbowl commercials (44 out of 68) included domain names but only four included phone numbers all of which were full or at least partial vanity numbers. They were all toll free of course too, but I don't think there's been a non toll free numbe in a superbowl commercial in decades.

The four commercials that included phone numbers were E-Trade (Getting robbed by your bank) 877-E-TRADE-4, HP (Orange County Choppers) 800-525-MYHP, Flomax (kyacking) 877-4-FLOMAX and E-trade again (1 finger) 877-E-TRADE-4.

This is down from 9 commercials last year because some advertisers, even ones with prominent vanity numbers didn't include them in their commercials this year. FedEx for example didn't include 1-800 GO-FEDEX. They also downsized the domain name too, to make it much smaller and less prominent.

I didn't count the number of commercals last year that included domain names, but it seems like the companies willing to spend millions of dollars for superbowl commercials aren't doing it to get calls or clicks, but to build a brand. They are carving their place and position and

The superbowl isn't about direct response, it's all branding and creating that name which consumers connect with the service, not just a specific domain name or phone number. So in many ways it's the wrong place to measure the use of vanity numbers, but it's not only the highlight of the football and maybe US Sports in general, but it's also the biggest night of the year for TV commercials too. We watch for them and talk about them. And since I live the vanity number business I couldn't help but see and count them.