Chris Thilk passes along word that Paramount’s Iron Man website saw its traffic spike by 800 percent after a new ad for the film was unveiled during the Super Bowl. This is interesting for two reasons. First, it would give the indication that there’s still a sizable segment of the audience that learns about movies first via TV advertising.

Second: I’m so not the target audience for this movie, and I never get hardons for trailers, but the Iron Man trailer almost makes me understand what it feels like to be a 16 year-old boy (almost). It seems so clear to me that the full Iron Man trailer, which I believe had been online for a couple of weeks before the game, is far superior than the Super Bowl ad in terms of selling the movie as a narrative experience, but it was the TV ad that apparently got the job done, and it did it by getting down to basics. He builds a suit, he puts it on, he makes out with Gwyneth Paltrow, and he wins. This is what the people want. I can’t begrudge them that.