Groupon made a lot of noise with its Super Bowl commercials. Initially, before they ever aired, the simple fact that they were advertising before the Super Bowl was interesting news in itself. It would give a growing company mass exposure, and potentially make it a household name. As competition mounts in the daily deals space, extending that brand lead would seem crucial. 

Super Bowl XLV promised to be the ‘Social Bowl’ of advertising with commercials predicted to be more ingrained in social media than ever before.  Starting with early nods to Pepsi Max and Doritos whose Crash the Super Bowl contest put six ads, all created and voted on by consumers, in the Sunday line-up.  As well as Bud Light, who gave a sneak peek of its ads to fans including the ability to unlock an online ad living exclusively on their Facebook page.

This is not a post about the funniest ads. Or the most popular. If you’re reading this post, you probably care about the marketing lessons you can take away from the Super Bowl. So, without further ado – here is a roundup of the best and worst of the Super Bowl marketing from last nights game.

Best Marketing Strategy: Volkswagen

Has leading the way in search engine query volume replaced the dreaded “Sports Illustrated jinx” as the thing sports fans should fear?  If the trend Google noticed continues, perhaps there’s something new for superstitious sports fans to consider.

Google is allowing football fans to take a virtual tour of Cowboys Stadium, in Arlington, Texas, ahead of Super Bowl XLV.

The NFL’s granddaddy of them all takes place this Sunday when the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers meet in Super Bowl XLV, and it promises to be one of the most-watched sporting events ever.  Keeping with tradition, the commercials that will be shown during the game are receiving a fair amount of hype as well.

AOL said today it is partnering with Domino’s on a free pizza giveaway with a chance to win free pizza for a year with a $600 Domino’s gift card.

The Domino’s Free Pizza Giveaway begins today and 29 people will have the chance to win free pizza for a year with a $600 gift card. To enter the giveaway, people can visit the AOL homepage  and click on the contest entry form. The winners will be announced beginning at 2 pm EST on Sunday.

U.S. prosecutors have seized 10 websites that illegally streamed live sporting broadcasts and pay-per-view content over the Internet.

The websites, which were seized Tuesday, as part of an ongoing investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), include atdhe.net, channelsurfing.net, firstrow.net, hq-streams.com, hq-streams.net, ilemi.com, iilemi.com, iilemii.com, rojadirecta.com and rojadirecta.org.

As the Super Bowl approaches, so do the time-honored ads that will accompany it. Advertisers aren’t just turning to the game itself to capitalize, however. Many are turning to the web to get some mileage out of the event. The History Channel, for example, has turned to Yahoo, and will be running ads for a new Larry the Cable Guy show on Yahoo Sports to capitalize on the inevitable Super Bowl fan traffic. 

Papa John’s said today that people who place orders online on Super Bowl Sunday will have the chance to win a $45 gift card.

Beginning at 10 a.m. ET on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 6, every customer who places an order online  will be eligible to win a free $45 Papa John’s gift card. The 45-Second Giveaway runs through Super Bowl XLV, ending at 9:59 p.m. ET. Papa John’s customers can also register for the 45 Second Giveaway.

If you’re having a hard time keeping up with all the NFL/Super Bowl XLV-related tweets, a new partnership between Twitter and the NFL will alleviate these issues. 

If Groupon’s not already a household name, it may be soon. According to AdAge, the company is getting ready for some big time TV advertising, starting with spots during the Super Bowl pre-game show (the Super Bowl itself was already sold out). 

Super Bowl 2010 will be forever remembered for a few things: New Orleans winning their first championship, Peyton Manning’s locker room walk-of-shame and Google running their first Super Bowl commercial.

The number of people who went online while watching the Super Bowl increased 2 percent this year to 14 percent, according to Nielsen.

Time spent online for those multitaskers was up from 24 minutes last year to 29 minutes with much of that time spent on social networks.

As WebProNews reported, Mullen and Radian6 partnered to launch BrandBowl2010, a Twitter/Super Bowl event that allowed users to see near real-time ratings of the Super Bowls commercials. The two companies have now released the results.

With millions watching, Google ran their first Super Bowl Commercial entitled "Parisian Love". If it looks familiar, that’s because it’s one of their "Search Stories" ads which was uploaded to YouTube back in November. You can check it out below…

What did you think of the commercial? Tell us.

Mullen and Radian6 have partnered to launch BrandBowl2010, a Twitter/Super Bowl event that combines tweeting, ad reviews and a number of rankings that will allow users to see near real-time ratings of the TV commercials airing during the game.

Users can log on to BrandBowl2010 using their Twitter ID, tweet directly from the page, view tweets using the hashtag #brandbowl and see how other Twitter users are rating Super Bowl commercials.

Last year, 12% of Super Bowl viewers used the Internet while watching the game according to data from Nielsen. Those that used the web spent an average of 24 minutes online during the game. It would not be at all surprising if those numbers increased significnatly this year.

Brand consulting and advertising firm Hanon McKendry is holding it second annual online Super Bowl ad poll.

Viewers of the game will be able to visit superadbowl.com at the end of the first quarter to cast their vote for their favorite commercial. As votes are casts, the results will be compiled immediately and posted so fans will be able to see how their favorites compare to others.

Domain name registrar and web hosting provider GoDaddy appears to be really making a name for itself based on controversial Super Bowl ads. In fact, one could ponder whether or not the general public would have such a distinct idea of what GoDaddy even is, if it were not for its Super Bowl controversies. Something tells me that’s just fine with GoDaddy. The company seems to feed off this stuff.

Pepsi will reportedly be skipping its annual Super Bowl commercials, and will instead invest the money it would generally spend on those, in social media marketing. This would make the first time in 23 years that Pepsi will not have Super Bowl ads.

Larry D. Woodard, President and CEO of Manhattan ad agency Vigilante writes in an ABC News piece: