Turning to YouTube for Super Bowl ads

A number of big conglomerates will show extended-length commercials during the heavily watched Super Bowl on Sunday. Some dot-com companies have chosen to take a different approach. Six Web sites have made ads and posted them on YouTube with the aim of starting a viral campaign and challenging the expensive advertising blitz set for the upcoming weekend.

"Hiring a well-known actor or athlete isn't the best use of our marketing dollar," Michael Gersh, vice president of sales and marketing at Multiply.com, said in a statement. "Rather than a true celebrity, we elected instead to rely on someone who just thinks he's a celebrity--Walter, our lead quality assurance engineer." Multiply.com is a site that claims to allow users media sharing capabilities (photos, videos, blogs, music, reviews, events, etc.) in a controlled, private environment.

Blog-tracking site Technorati has also joined the online Super Bowl ad movement, using footage from the 1998 film The Big Lebowski to promote its new site element, "Where's the Fire?" "WTF" is intended to clarify who and what is getting buzz on the Web, as well as why. The Big Lebowski is better known for the other use of the acronym "WTF," which is where Technorati's ad punch line lies.

Most of the YouTube dot-com ads are based either on well-known commercials, like Meebo.com's rendition of the Volkswagen "Sunday Morning" piece, or completely original offerings such as Meez.com's video featuring an online avatar's experience on Super Bowl Sunday.

In its commercial, titled "One Beer," Plaxo plays on humor seen in the movie Old School with its focus an employee who gets caught by his boss while he is intoxicated and streaking in pursuit of tacos. The ad's tagline: "New job, new phone number, new address? No problem. Plaxo, your address book for life."

Photo slide-show site Rock You has also contributed to the effort with a dubbed foreign film highlighting what the site calls the "Legend of Rook Yu." To view all of the organically produced Super Bowl advertisements, click here.