SAN JUAN, PR — Big jumps in Google search activity followed Super Bowl ads for established brands this year, defying assumptions that only new product commercials or DTC advertisers cause such traffic spikes.
This shows that two-screening—concurrently using Google and another screen—is becoming “a genetic predisposition”, said Sean Cunningham, president and CEO, Video Advertising Bureau (VAB), in this video interview with Beet.TV.
The VAB, a trade association for premium video providers, regularly analyzes Google search data to illustrate the value of premium video advertising.
Premium video’s impact on Google Search
VAB’s recent research, “2025 Super Bowl Advertisers Success Stories”, examined 15 brands participating in Super Bowl.
The VAB’s research shows that premium video drives significant spikes in Google searches, said Cunningham. “We took a look and we analyzed inside of those 930 new advertisers and found out that 90% of the times our analysis yielded between a 60 and 75% immediate spike within the 10 days of campaign launch of Google search,” said Cunningham.
The VAB’s analysis revealed significant search spikes even for established brands like Michelob Ultra and Pringles, said Cunningham. “Every brand we looked at had immediate jumps from tenfold to fiftyfold in terms of their search activity instantaneously after the ad running,” the CEO said. “And this is also for ads that had absolutely no search impetus,” he added.
The VAB’s research demonstrates that premium video advertising goes beyond awareness and affinity, traditionally “softer” metrics, to deliver “performance metrics” like traffic and search, said Cunningham.
Transparency needed now
The VAB is an umbrella body for the premium video market. It believes that professional production, long format, high emotional involvement from audiences, brand safety on any platform, 100% transparency, and the ability to convert consumers into customers are key attributes of premium video.
The VAB defines premium video as content that “builds traffic like no other medium,” driving sales and fulfilling brand and traffic goals, said Cunningham.
But Cunningham also wants advertisers to have full transparency including a “bill of rights” to understand the entire lifecycle of every ad impression. He added that advertisers should also understand how all metrics are calculated and have access to granular details about the deployment of every impression.
“Those calculations need to be 100% transparent to them,” said Cunningham. Third-party verification is essential to ensure these standards are met, he added.
You’re watching coverage from Beet Retreat San Juan 2025, presented by Cognitiv, Index Exchange & TransUnion. For more videos from this series, please visit this page.
