The Super Bowl always provides insight into how the rest of the year will play out for marketers. After the lead-up to the big game and Super Bowl Sunday, itself, its safe to say that interactive, integrated campaigns are king for 2012.
Battle of the Teams
On Thursday before the game, the Giants hosted “Social Media Night,” where fans could interact directly with the players through Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Players and broadcasters participating were given specific hashtags to channel fans’ comments. The Giants even jumped onto the latest platform, Google+, to have a VIP hangout with a group of 20 lucky fans. When it comes to social, #GiantsWin.
The NFL did their part to harness the conversation by launching “The Huddle” – a one-column feed of comments from players, teams, and sponsors. The page also kept track of the top 5 trending topics and hashtags, which showed the overwhelming popularity of Tom Brady over Eli Manning as the quarterback of conversation, #SorryEli.
Two moments from last night’s Super Bowl landed in the top tweets-per-second roster. The end of the Super Bowl saw 12,233 tweets per second, and Madonna’s halftime show brought in 10,245 tweets per second. These are now in second and third place for most tweets-per-second in history. (Number one is held by the launch of the anime movie Castle in the Sky in Japan).
Battle of the Ads
The lifespan of a multi-million-dollar ad is no longer its thirty-second spot during the game. With social media, the ad is just the start of a conversation between the viewers and the brand.
According to Nielsen, two out of every three Super Bowl viewers watching the game on TV were simultaneously following and joining conversations on their tablets and smartphones. Before the game even started, it was estimated that 40 million Americans would share their favorite ads online.
Surely, that was something that the country’s leading brands wanted to capitalize on. During the course of the night, 24 ads incorporated Twitter hashtags, links to their social profiles, QR codes, or links to integrated landing pages of sites, (by ‘integrated’ we mean that the campaign itself spans more than one marketing platform).
My favorite ad from the night, Bud Light’s “Rescue Dog,” drove viewers to the Bud Light Facebook Page where a fan gate told the story of the loveable rescue dog, Weego, and announced that they would donate $1 for every ‘like’ Weego received. A simple wall post asking fans if they liked Weego brought in over 41,000 ‘likes’ and over 2,200 comments.
I doubt this 60-second spot will be the end of the conversation on the Bud Light Page. Rather, in 60-seconds they introduced 111 million viewers to an adorable character, a good cause, and a story that provides them with fun content for their fans for months or even years to come. #NowThatsGoodMarketing
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