While plenty of tech companies will be advertising before and during the Super Bowl, the ad to watch will most likely be from a centuries-old business: Beer.
Anheuser-Busch, the Super Bowl's biggest advertiser, will use several of its ads to drive people to its Bud Bowl Web site, which features a Super Bowl game played between those perennial football powers, Budweiser and Bud Light.
The site should generate heavy traffic, since Anheuser-Busch will give away $1 million in prizes.
And experts think the TV/Web cross-promotion is a sign of things to come.
"A unique [advertising] event usually triggers what then becomes an epidemic," said Tara Lemmey, a Web marketing expert in San Francisco.
She said the Budweiser ads present "a really huge indicator ... that big-brand advertisers finally think that enough people have computers in their homes that they can do this kind of advertising."
Victoria's Web site
Lingerie retailer Victoria's Secret, meanwhile, will use its Super Bowl ad to promote a live Webcast of a fashion show that will feature many of the world's top female models parading around in the latest frilly underwear.
The two ads show that "the Web has integrated itself into the fabric of everybody's life now," said Bill Bass, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc.
This is a dramatic change from last year, said Bass, when the appearance of ads for Web companies was a novelty.
Better advertising
Behind the drive to send people to their computers during the game: The desire to make advertising more effective.
"You can drive people to a Web site, drive commerce and certainly get a bigger message across than you can in a one-minute spot," said Rob Enderle, an analyst at Giga Information Group in Santa Clara, Calif.
Enderle noted that Intel Corp.'s ads at the Super Bowl a year ago -- which generated more than 400,000 hits on Intel's Web site -- "make it very clear that this kind of promotion works."
"The question is whether they'll set up the infrastructure to handle what will likely be a peak load, much bigger than they usually get," he added.
Traditional techs
There will be plenty of tech advertisers, as well. Ironically, most will use their Super Bowl spots for more traditional brand advertising.
While Intel (Nasdaq:INTC) dropped its advertising time last week and IBM Corp. (NYSE:IBM) also dropped its traditional time, Apple Computer Inc. (Nasdaq:AAPL) will advertise, as will job sites Monster.com and Hotjobs.com.
Siebel Systems Inc., a sales force automation vendor, will also have an ad during the Super Bowl, and Philips Electronics will use the Super Bowl to tout its new HDTV product.
Several tech companies plan ads for the lengthy pre-game show, including Micron Electronics Inc. (Nasdaq:MUEI), E*Trade (Nasdaq:EGRP) and Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq:YHOO), which will have the last spot before the kick-off.
Softbank Corp., parent company of ZDNN publisher Ziff-Davis Inc. (NYSE:ZD), holds significant stakes in both E*Trade and Yahoo!.
