According to a New York Times report, advertisers are looking to build buzz for their spots by showing a portion or all of their commercials online before the game.
HomeAway, a vacation rental company and Super Bowl advertiser, is one of those businesses looking to get a head start.
"Last year, we thought, 'We ought to keep this close to the vest and make it a big surprise,' " Brian Sharples, chief executive of HomeAway, told the Times.
The spot in last year's game "exceeded" expectations, according to Mr. Sharples. "This year, we said, 'Let's put it out there.'" HomeAway's new commercial can be seen on the company's website.
HomeAway like Best Buy, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Motorola, Snickers and others is also using social media to draw attention to its commercial pre-game.
Timothy Calkins, clinical professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, told the Times, "There are so many spots in a Super Bowl that it can be hard to stand out. A lot of the strategy is now focused on how you position yourself in advance of the game, because if you wait till the last minute, it makes it harder to break through."
Motorola is one of those companies looking to build buzz before the game, but is holding back on showing its full spot of its Xoom tablet computer to keep the level of anticipation high.
A USA Today story discusses how brands are using social media to create added buzz before, during and after the game.
"It's cosmically different, because it's not just a TV experience, but a multichannel, multiplatform, deeply social experience," Shiv Singh, digital media chief at PepsiCo Americas Beverages told USA Today.
Ann Mukherjee, chief marketing officer at Frito-Lay, told the paper, "People are not working at the office like they used to. Digital space is helping to re-create that human behavior of talking at the water cooler."