Digiday has a great story out today on the online advertising you could buy for that $4 million ticket price on 30 seconds of Superbowl ad time. The story makes some interesting observations. For instance, you could take over AOL’s Portal for an entire week or buy over 100 million video impressions on Hulu.

The article, however, neglects a key fact. Impressions are somewhat meaningless. An impression is a link to your site that is guaranteed to be seen, but that’s all it is — a guaranteed ad to an ad. While online advertising has been proven to work to an extent, many people tune them out almost immediately due to the sheer number of sidebar ads and banners we see at any given moment while browing the web. (Sure, you can buy an ad on Hulu, but when’s the last time you actually watched an ad?)

Companies also aren’t just paying for the ad space during the Superbowl. They’re paying for the opportunity to be loved. Superbowl ads are some of the only forms of advertisements that people look forward to. They have become part of the culture, and a good ad can still influence users for months after it airs.

So it’s not really fair to compare digital media to timeless strategies such as, “advertise during the Superbowl”. Instead, one should ask the question, “What can I do to create the same sort of warmth, love, and positive engagement through digital properties that I would receive through a Superbowl ad?” And the answer is simply running social properties such as Facebook pages or networked blogs.

What do you think: can we ever build an online environment as compelling as 30 seconds of television? Why or why not?