Super Bowl XLVIII presents...The year of the advertising tease

Super Bowl XLVIII is about to land on your doorstep with a loud and ferocious whump, but days before this happens, there will be many small and intriguing whumpettes: Brief ad snippets or teases that promise something of great and enduring interest if you just pay attention to that $4 million in-game ad that is being teased...

 It's the trend du jour of 2014 - the ad for the ad...

 The tease...

 There are teases everywhere, or at least "everywhere" as defined by YouTube. Certainly not every major marketer has one out there, but many do, like Wonderful Pistachios and M&Ms, to mention just two. (Check back here and I'll post more.)

 It's not a new idea, heaven knows, but rather an old idea with fresh legs: A couple of years ago, advertisers figured that they could get some social media  mileage out of their in-game spot by pre-releasing it. Good idea in principal, except that when people saw the ad (or worse, a shortened version of the pre-released ad), they ran to fridge. Why sit through the thing again?! Hence, there was believed to be a certain degree of cannibalization that took place with the pre-release.

 But the tease theoretically solves that...If you can tease something, you are not giving away the store, and maybe even promising something that would forestall that trip to the fridge. 

  Here's a good ABC News reel on the trend. And meanwhile, keep this in mind - the "tease" is but one trick up the marketers' collective sleeve; there are others, and we'll get to those later. 

 To the tease!