Texting, Facebook to Top In-Game Super Bowl Chatter

Venables Bell & Partners is out with their annual Super Bowl study to see "what Americans will be doing around the water cooler this year." And in keeping with the current meme du jour, the study is accompanied by an infographic representaion of the findings.

Last year, almost one in five (19%) of Americans searched for ads before the game, about double (11%) who did in 2010. Of that group, 48% searched for ads on Facebook, putting the site just ahead of YouTube and media sources as the lead destination to find ads.

This year, more than a third (36%) of Americans plan to share their favorite ad via social media. Of that group, 87% will share via Facebook, ahead of emailing with a YouTube link (6%) and Twitter (4%). Doing a little math, this means that if 111 million people watch this year's game, there could be 35 million posts on Facebook about Super Bowl advertising. And if the average Facebook user has 130 friends, those collective posts could result in over 4.5 billion incremental impressions.

Regarding the omnipresent multitasking that goes on during the Super Bowl, the study finds more than half (52%) plan to be engaged with some type of communications tool while watching the game, a percentage that increases for young adults (85%). 30% of Americans will be texting and roughly a quarter will be on Facebook, followed by e-mail, telephone, search, Twitter, IM and blogging. Remember when "live blogging" was the cool thing to do during the game? We do. And we still do it. Along with tweet, Like, text and, of course, scream and the TV when too many ads overwhelm us.

As for what happens after the game, the study finds 27% will engage in a good old physical water cooler discussion about the ads on Monday.