It’s almost Super Bowl time, which means it is almost our third annual Hyperbole Super Bowl commercial round up.

But I’m more interested in the planning, testing and excitement behind the commercials.  Not the cameras or directing, but the full campaigns.  More and more recently advertisers have had to go well beyond the flatness of TV, into the space of the consumers.  It’s not just about presenting pretty pictures, but interacting with people.

Yes, people, NOT consumers or statistics on a clipboard of ratings.  Advertising is finally getting to a place where the middle man of TV and Radio is being removed and we can be closer to the brands we want to talk about.  Those platforms are still relevant, but their role has changed.  Spots on the TV and radio more often than not direct people somewhere else to be more engaged — Facebook, Twitter, or a website.

Then again, it’s not just social media either.  It used to be the purview of guerilla marketing to install physical media as part of a campaign.  In the link above, Volkswagen breached this wall by installing those musical stairs.  I expect to see more of this in 2011 and hopefully tied in with the mega-million dollar commercials running on the Super Bowl.