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From The Bench To The Quarterback: How Search Helps Brands Score

Brands that don't make search a key tactic of their Super Bowl advertising strategy miss out on millions of impressions. Last year YouTube had more than 300 million hits from Super Bowl-related ads, nearly three times the viewing audience of the live game. An average Super Bowl advertiser gets nearly three times the lift in search activity even after the game.

Social and search are as much a part of the Super Bowl as the game itself, and having an agile and prepared strategy is imperative to maximize the value and connect with the audience in a meaningful way before, during and after the game. 

Here is what is happening before the game and behind the scenes for Super Bowl-related search and how to use search to maximize the value of the marketing platform.

1.     Practice: Knowing a brand’s discoverability, having a search presence and an infrastructure in place to optimize owned and earned online properties before the game is imperative to capture every click.

2.     Scrimmage: There are no longer concerns that pre-releasing ads will cannibalize interest and with 160 million YouTube views before game day, on average brands are matching their in-game investments with prior support teaser campaigns. Those who don’t pre-release the spots on their own channel are putting their brand at risk that someone will take control of their content.

3.     Intercept: Search has also opened the door for new forms of creativity and even if a brand doesn’t have skin in the game, there are ways to be a part of it by conquesting competitor’s audiences, and buying open search terms -- an often overlooked step for first-time advertisers.

4.     Huddle: Having a live war room with all agency partners and decision makers in the room during the game, ready to monitor conversation, capture people’s online behavior, change tactics, collect data and be responsive is a best practice to take advantage of these real-time opportunities.

5.     Game film: Connecting with the world’s largest audience comes with great amount of data and learning. In addition to adding paid support around popularity, the insights mined from the online behavior and engagement from this massive moment can help guide a brand’s content strategy throughout the future.

There is no way to predict virality, but it’s easy to be prepared for it by laying down the right groundwork, seizing the moment and adjusting the marketing mix to be responsive to what’s being said in real-time.

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