Is Facebook The New King of Super Bowl Ads?

The war between YouTube and Facebook for the most popular online platform for sharing and watching videos is heating up, and Facebook may win a major victory this weekend.

With the Super Bowl upon us, everyone is gearing up for one of the greatest competitions of the year – the fight for the most watched Super Bowl ad. But, more Super Bowl ads and teaser videos are being shared online ahead of the big game, and TV ad analytics company iSpot.tv says may be the new place for watching the biggest ads of the year online.

It is a close fight, with Facebook barely pulling ahead of YouTube, but it is a big win for the company either way. YouTube dominated online Super Bowl ads last year, but Facebook has pushed their video platform heavily over the year and seen massive increases in both views and shares.

Source: Marketing Land

According to iSpot.tv’s data counting video views through Tuesday, February 2, approximately 75 million super bowl ads videos have been viewed on Facebook, compared to 74.9 million on YouTube. As the published report on Marketing Land shows, the numbers are neck-and-neck. But, it is a huge change from last year where YouTube received 87.6 million to Facebook’s 45.5 million.

In most cases, an argument can be made to explain the discrepancy. Facebook counts video views when a user watches for just three seconds, but YouTube doesn’t count until “around” 30 seconds in. However, iSpot.tv says it uses a three-second standard for counting views on both platforms.