Commentary

Real-Time Roundup Of Super Bowl XLIX: Brands Relied On Hashtags, Not Moments

Rather than latching on to a single moment, each brand tried to create its own conversation during Super Bowl XLIX, and many were tied to a TV spot that had been purchased. Coca-Cola, for example, tried mightily to make #MakeItHappy happen.

It was relatively successful, but it wasn’t a slam dunk. Amobee, a mobile ad firm, analyzed social data from last night’s game and found that Twitter users' sentiment around Coca-Cola was 60% positive. It was the second-most popular advertiser on the night, per Amobee.

Amobee gave Budweiser the crown, saying it generated 234,000 social mentions during the game around the “Lost Dog” ad. Turns out we're all suckers for cute pets.

T-Mobile has promoted #KimsDataStash, another example of a company that attempted to create its own conversation outside the game. The hashtag came from the unfunny Kim Kardashian commercial; maybe it was promoted because they didn’t get as much organic engagement as they hoped? Per Amobee, positive sentiment was only 24% around T-Mobile, and it generated 17,217 social mentions.

Exactly half of Super Bowl ads this year featured a hashtag, per Marketing Land, down a bit from 57% last year (which Marketing Land says was a record).

Nationwide was being talked about last night -- generating 238,239 social mentions -- but it was for all the wrong reasons. Thanks to their gut punch of an ad featuring a deceased kid, positive sentiment around Nationwide was only 12%, per Amobee.

The brand that generated the most social action was Always -- sort of.

Always’ #LikeAGirl campaign -- which wasn’t new for the Super Bowl, for what it’s worth -- generated 408,000 social mentions, tops among all brands. However, only 7% of those tweets were actually tied to the actual brand, “showing that while people loved the ad, they didn’t necessarily associate it with the brand that created it,” Amobee noted.

According to retargeting firm Criteo, there was a “massive dropoff in online activity during the game.” Specific data to back that up wasn’t revealed, but more is expected later in the week. Perhaps the dropoff was a result of a game that went down to the wire (the score wasn't 29-0 with half the game to go like it was last year) and lacked a wacky moment (there was no 30-minute power outage that led people to other screens).

So there’s the real-time readout on real-time marketing from Super Bowl XLIX. Brands appeared more dedicated to building their own story rather than attempting to find a random moment. Brands were undoubtedly prepared for the unexpected, but there weren't many atypical moments for brands to try to capitalize on, other than at the end of the game, when everyone was watching the TV anyway.

And maybe that’s for the better. It doesn’t always go well when brands try to force themselves into relevancy.

Graphic provided by Amobee Brand Intelligence.

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