For $3 million dollars per 30-second spot, Super Bowl advertisers gave us Betty White, talking babies (again), Danica Patrick (again), a Google wedding, and more late-night wars (why would Leno appear in a competitor’s commercial?), among other sophomoric hijinks. Those were my favorites in an otherwise uninspiring line-up. But even when our marketing brethren aren’t so funny, I see several ways that communicators can help their organizations get more out of any significant investment in advertising:

1.   Get employees involved in your ad—A Super Bowl ad can serve as a point of pride for a rising or recovering company, an honored tradition at others, or a chance to introduce a new product, strategy, or era of a firm. Of course, such occasions represent great opportunities to increase employee engagement and energize your internal advocates to further carry your message. Consider allowing employees to judge potential ad copy, create their own submissions, win tickets to the game, or send links you create to spread the commercial virally. For example, on YouTube employees can go to the Ad Blitz channel and vote for their company’s ad to increase the number of online impressions.

2.   Milk the press—A Google News search on Friday for “Super Bowl” and variations on “advertisement” yielded 12,236 stories. At least people still talk about the actual game a little: combos with Peyton Manning got 28,663 mentions and Drew Brees 15,311. But still, that’s way more than Reggie Bush’s 5,304 (or Kim Kardashian’s 1,166). The point is there are thousands of opportunities to place your story with writers struggling for any new angle on their annual commercial curtain raiser piece.  Witness how the Tim Tebow spot for Focus on the Family ultimately proved rather un-buzz-worthy, but the organization effectively got value by making itself available to the many media members writing about the ad in advance. (Commenting on the media hoopla surrounding the ad, the organization’s CEO reported, “We won long before the ad ever ran.”)

Additionally, you should look to work the thousands of on- and offline “refs” effectively declaring “winners” of the alternate universe that is the Super Bowl’s commercial time. Stuart Elliott of the NYT, Bruce Horovitz, who monitors the USA Today’s influential Ad Meter, and new media outlets like Gawker, Deadspin, and the Huffington Post are among those who set the early conventional wisdom on the success of your efforts. For example, CBS’s PR team has quickly placed dozens of “how it got made” stories about its Letterman promo in leading outlets, effectively selling the spot’s success and making it the lead of many commercial re-cap articles or the front page of entertainment web sites.

3.   Prepare for controversy—Although I thought marketers played it safe this year, a Super Bowl ad can put a company at great risk. Just the expense of the ad can draw the ire of investors or other stakeholders monitoring fiscal disciple—particularly in an era when many companies have accepted bailouts and other urgent subsidies.  Additionally, many organizations push the envelope with their ads, which requires communicators to be ready to defend their Marketing department’s creative decisions.  So watch the ad in advance and prepare to engage with any offended party’s advocacy group—perhaps a corporate donation to Save the Clydesdales or the Golden Girls Preservation Society?

So, what caught your eye?  Have you seen examples of communicators amplifying the value of a Super Bowl ad this year?