The problem with the writer's analysis is that he uses twitter and social media activity as the main indicator of the ads' success and ignores the inherent differences in the ads and the movies they are selling. The ads' principal purpose is to raise awareness. For viewers to tweet about a particular ad would depend on whether it made enough of an impression (positive and negative) in a crowded marketplace on a very busy social day. His simplistic tally also does not differentiate between favorable and dismissive reactions.

Whether people ultimately go see the movies depends on whether they like what they see. As the old saying goes, you can take the horse to the well but you can't force the horse to drink.... The audience may ultimately not want to buy what they're selling but the ads make them aware that it's out there. Selling a movie is a long process and building awareness is just the first step.

The online audience that subsequently clicks to watch a featurette is making an active choice and will be more inclined to form and share their opinions compared to the passive TV audience. And some of those may have been led to do so after seeing the TV spot.

There is no no way one can draw conclusions from the very superficial data about the effectiveness of the ads, or to equate a film's success with its superbowl exposure or lack of it. For that, a rigorous survey would have to be done. It is something Nate Silver would be well-equipped to analyze but on the basis of written evidence, not the writer.

-- Fussy

From boxoffice.com

Are Super Bowl Spots for Summer Movies Still Worth the Investment?

on February 01, 2013 by Shawn Robbins

After a lack of trailers for blockbuster hopefuls at the 2012 Super Bowl, 2013's big game is poised to showcase some serious heavyweights. Summer movies reported to be getting ad times this Sunday include Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness, Fast & Furious 6, World War Z and The Lone Ranger.
Compare that to last year's Super Bowl--viewed by a record 111.3 million people in North America--when most of the ad space for movies was claimed by pre-May releases. Aside from Marvel's The Avengers, Hollywood's summer slate was represented by Battleship and The Dictator. Not exactly the best choices. Still, 2013's lineup of shortened previews looks more exciting for summer movie fans.
Does Hollywood really need to keep pushing its blockbusters for nearly $8 million per minute?
Consider this: Disney forked over $3.5 million for a 30-second spot of The Avengers during last year's game. That Sunday, the film generated 3,112 tweets (and 28,569 the day after). On February 7, when the one-minute version of the same trailer debuted online, Twitter activity hit 6,296--more than double what it was on the day of the game. When the final two-plus minute trailer debuted online on February 29, Avengers generated 59,291 tweets over a two-day period. That's 87 percent more discussion generated than when the Super Bowl ad premiered (both on television and online).
In other words, $3.5 million bought a large audience, but the stronger Internet chatter and social media discussion were self-generated by Disney's own trailer release a few weeks later. Worth noting is that Disney paid $7 million to advertise John Carter for 60 seconds. That film's final online featurette also generated more Twitter activity than the Super Bowl push.
For 2013, the average cost for 30 seconds of ad time during the game ranges between from $3.8 to $4 million. Iron Man 3 is getting the 60-second treatment while The Lone Ranger will be given a pricey 90 seconds. Yes, Disney will spend close to $12 million on the latter movie alone. Sure, advertising a Johnny Depp movie based on a TV show that only some adults remember might be a smart mix with the older Super Bowl audience. But, for a movie that doesn't release until July and has already encountered budget issues once during the lead-up to production, that $12 million could be more wisely spent in May and June when the real marketing campaign will ramp up.
There are two sides to any argument, though. We can fairly say that a potential television audience of 100 million people is worth something in its own right. It's simply arguable that established brand names no longer need high bankrolls for a single ad space in the age of DVR, iTunes Trailers and YouTube.
The Avengers may have gone on to great success, but its overall social media activity indicated the success was more than just the result of Super Bowl ad time. On the flip side of the coin, an estimated 14 percent of Universal's marketing expenses for Battleship went toward a 60-second game-time ad. The film bombed domestically, did relatively well overseas (where American football is far less of an event attraction) and ultimately struggled to make its money back in theaters.
Conversely, Act of Valor was showcased during the game last year and it resulted in great awareness for a film aimed specifically toward one of football's key demographics: adult men. Time and money, in its case, was well-spent as online discussion peaked during the day of and day following the Super Bowl. The film went on to become a box office success.
If you look back over the last five years of summer movies which were advertised during the big game, you'll find that most turned out to have profitable box office runs. Some in the industry may take that as a justification for whatever money was spent on a Super Bowl ad. Times are changing fast, though. Social media is quickly becoming the dominate force in terms of spreading word of mouth and awareness for movies. What some studios have deemed to be worth $3.5 to $12 million over the last few years, they could have gotten for a fraction of the cost by putting the money into social media and other marketing avenues closer to release (when general audiences are far more likely to even remember a promotion for any given movie).
To their credit, studios such as Warner Bros., Fox and Sony have already begun adapting. In 2012, The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall and The Amazing Spider-Man were all absent during the game. The same went for Prometheus, Snow White and the Huntsman and Ted. In fact, Warner Bros. has intentionally shied away from the Super Bowl during the past half decade: The Dark Knight, the last three Harry Potter films, and Inception were all absent from the game. Instead, WB chose to market their films through more cost effective channels--and they wildly succeeded. Ditto for Sony and its brilliant strategy throughout 2012 with Skyfall.
Considering recent history, odds are that WB's decision to leave Man of Steel out of the line-up this Sunday, while somewhat controversial, is a smart play for a franchise that needs just as much financial care as it does creative care. Can the same be said for newcomer titles like Pacific Rim and Sony's World War Z (Super Bowl spot seen below)? Generating some awareness for unknown properties is a good idea, and even at $4 million per half-minute, those potential summer hits are the ones that could need the exposure most.
Other summer movies absent from game-time promotion this year: The Great Gatsby, The Hangover Part III, After Earth, This Is the End, Monsters University, Despicable Me 2, Grown Ups 2, Kick-Ass 2, White House Down, The Wolverine, The Smurfs 2, 300: Rise of an Empire, Elysium and RED 2.
The debate over Super Bowl advertising strategies will continue, but a one-off play in front of a live television audience exceeding 100 million potential consumers may not be quite as valuable as Hollywood's conventional wisdom still tells them it is. Some decision makers are already getting wise, and more would be well-advised to follow their lead in the future.

Number of Movies in the Top 10 at the Summer Box Office **NOT** Advertised during the Super Bowl:
2008: 7 (including top earner, The Dark Knight)
2009: 6
2010: 7 (including top earner, Toy Story 3)
2011: 4 (including top earner, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II)
2012: 9

From USA Today

Oz vs. Captain Kirk vs. Lone Ranger in Super Bowl ads

Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY9:45p.m. EST February 1, 2013

Art-house films take the sidelines. On Super Sunday, the likes of Captain Kirk, Iron Man and the Lone Ranger duke it out in the Super Bowl movie sweepstakes.

When it comes to Super Bowl ad strategy, Hollywood studios go strictly with their first-team players and leave the reserves on the bench.

The half-dozen movies that are paying a reported $4 million for a 30-second spot this year are the blockbuster tent-pole franchises, which means the likes of Iron Man, the Lone Ranger and Captain Kirk will vie Sunday night for the attention of an international viewing audience estimated at more than 100 million.
Independent movies and smaller studio releases without mass appeal didn't even bother to step into the ring.
"These are the movies that the six major studios have identified as the top priorities for the spring and summer, because otherwise it's just too cost-prohibitive," says Dave Karger, a chief correspondent for movie ticket website Fandango.com. "You're not going to see Harvey Weinstein advertising on the Super Bowl, I'll put it that way."

For Joe Roth, producer of Oz: The Great and Powerful, the decision to add a Super Bowl commercial to a movie's bottom line is not taken lightly. But the allure of the mass audience is worth the investment for the prequel to The Wizard of Oz that's due out March 8.

"The Library of Congress says the original Wizard of Oz is the most-watched film of all time. So why not pick this title, which is obviously quite broad, and put it in front of the largest television audience available to you?" says Roth. "If it's a movie that plays to 12-year-old girls, we wouldn't do it. This is an 8-to-80 picture. It is not going to leave anyone out. And the Super Bowl is really the only television event of the year that plays that way."

The Super Bowl ads are also celebrated and watched in a way that most commercials are not during the rest of the year. Oz, like other films advertising on Sunday, is taking advantage of the Super hype to put out teasers of the ad itself — the demand to see the sneak-peek spots is that high.

"The early attenders who come to movies are often the very people who skip over commercials on regular shows," says Roth. "Here's an event, the Super Bowl, where commercials are a Super Bowl onto themselves. They are celebrated."

The spots are guaranteed at least one viewer: "I'll be glued to the TV," says Roth, "and rooting for the 49ers."