Intel to monitor social networks on Super Bowl ads

Computerworld - Intel Corp. executives are monitoring social networks like Facebook and Twitter to gauge consumer reaction to commercials that it ran during Sunday's Super Bowl.

Intel paid CBS between $3 million and $4 million to air two commercials during the football game and to sponsor the post-game show.

Now Intel's marketing department will be monitoring the social networks to determine whether the commercials were a hit among viewers.

"It's the first time [Intel has] gauged audience reaction around an event by using social networks," said Intel spokesman David Veneski in an interview prior to the Super Bowl. "From a social perspective, the commercials often are a larger [source of] talk than the game. It will be fun to see what people are saying about our commercial."

An Intel social media team began watching sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube during the Super Bowl and continued monitoring them afterward. Intel also posted the two commercials on YouTube's video site after they were aired on television.

"We're absolutely looking at this as an opportunity to have consumers talking in the social networks," Veneski said.

The Super Bowl commercial is a departure from Intel's recent slate of what the company calls its geek rock star commercials.

Instead of presenting some of their top engineers and researchers as people who draw swooning crowds and rocker-style adoration in geeky circles, these new ads focus on the company's new Core family of processors.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her e-mail address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

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