IS SOCIAL MEDIA SPOILING THE SUPER BOWL AD SURPRISE? As advertisers seek more bang for their $4 million with Twitter and YouTube, they compromise the surprise--and risk blending in

Many advertisers in the Big Game will tease and reveal details of their Super Bowl creative as a means to generate response through digital and social media. To be sure, harnessing the power of social media makes perfect business sense. When an advertiser shells out between $3.5 million and $4.5 million for a Super Bowl ad, using social media to get added exposure isn't just an afterthought. It helps amortize the cost of the commercial by generating millions of dollars in free publicity. The technique threatens to put a favorite Super Bowl ad trick on the shelf to collect dust. For decades, Super Bowl ads hinged on "the reveal" or the delivery of something surprising. While this new era of ads is generating loads of digital and social response, they are also removing a lot of the shock and wonder that were once a big part of the experience