Ad expert: Google’s Super Bowl spot was a live traffic test

Don't they have something close to this data already, by virtue of controlling the most popular search engine? They can already observe the search-traffic spikes for various brands and products from Super Bowl ads that they didn't pay for.

It's possible they got some new data out of it, but my guess is that it really was just an ad purchased for the reason ads usually are purchased, in this case partly to counter Bing's ad campaign.

This is an interesting approach: . “What better way to learn the true potential of the world’s most expensive slot than to buy it.”