ChaCha, the free answer service, saw more than a million mobile user questions Super Bowl Sunday, proving the power that SMS has in reaching young adults.

The answer service asked consumers who queried about football-related questions for their favorite and least-favorite Super Bowl commercials. ChaCha said it was prepared for the onslaught of consumer questions during the game between the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts.

?These results reflect the uniquely high engagement that we continue to have with our users during major sporting, entertainment and world events,? said Cat Enagonio, vice president of marketing and client care at ChaCha, Indianapolis. ?They turn to ChaCha almost like a smart friend and rely on the very personal, trusted interaction they can get with us.

?We anticipated a very high volume of traffic [on Sunday] and had extra content loaded and ChaCha Guides standing by,? she said. ?We continue to see rising traffic weekly, so it was not a surprise.?

ChaCha is a free mobile answers service that let users call 1-800-2-ChaCha or text questions to ChaCha at the short code 242242.

The company?s advertising services provide pay-for-engagement opportunities and have been used by marketers such as Palm, IKEA, Coca-Cola, McDonald?s, Paramount and the Obama Campaign.

Big days, big records
ChaCha had previous record days during the Haiti news and the recent AFC and NFC championship games. 

Ms. Enagonio said it is always fun and interesting for ChaCha to see how its users engage and what is important to them. 

During the Super Bowl, ChaCha also broke a unique user record by having more than 400,000 unique users engage with ChaCha. 

Peak times were between 8 and 9 p.m., the hour surrounding the halftime show, which is when people have a higher propensity to interact with each other.

ChaCha recently broke the 400-million-question milestone when combining its users who engage by all methods ? by SMS, online and calling.  It now has more than 15 million unique users per month. 

Its demographic is expanding up ? 81 percent of its users are between 13 and 24 years old, which remains ChaCha?s sweet spot.

Doritos ad scores touchdown
According to American teens, Doritos had the best spots during the Super Bowl.

Ms. Enagonio said Doritos has done a great job of getting youth to engage with their brand.

?They have had their fans do commercials for their brand, which I think gets people involved, in particular the youth market,? Ms. Enagonio said. ?This kind of fun, live interaction is very similar to what has created the phenomenon of ChaCha.?

Consumers disliked GoDaddy commercials the most.

As measured by text traffic, consumers were most interested in Denny's, mostly asking where the nearest location of the restaurant was to collect their free meal on Tuesday.

Inquiries about the teams involved also skyrocketed with 60,000 questions asked? about 10 times the norm ? throughout Super Bowl Sunday.

Ms. Enagonio said the record-breaking numbers ChaCha saw indicates there is no doubt of the power of texting.

?Teenagers are sending an average of 3,000 text messages per month,? Ms. Enagonio said. ?Haiti recently raised over $22 million by text alone in just days.

?The youth demographic has grown up with ?instantaneous? small bites of info and so mobile messaging has grown to be their main form of communication,? she said. ?The interesting thing about the mobile messaging format is that people text while they are doing virtually everything, because it comes in such small bites and people can absorb and respond quickly.

?It is changing everything from raising money to how people interact, and now how major brands can advertise and engage with the youth audience.?