The Super Bowl Goes Social February 9th, 2010
Portia Krebs

From big game buzz to entertaining commercials, the Super Bowl consistently captivates attention and fuels water-cooler conversations.  Now, social media is taking the talk to the next level – engaging football fans in online conversations and providing new channels for consumers to view and even vote on ads.  And, with 51% of the Super Bowl audience watching the game for the commercials alone, social media gives advertisers new opportunities to create a stir.

Several companies used Facebook tie-ins to broaden their brands’ Super Bowl buzz.  Coca-Cola invited its Facebook fans to share a virtual Coke bottle in order to watch a preview of its big game commercials; for each virtual gift shared, the brand donated $1 to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.  Pepsi famously decide to forego Super Bowl advertising, and devote $20 million to a social media campaign called the Pepsi Refresh Project, which encourages consumers to submit their ideas for potential funding from the corporation to reinvigorate their communities.  Has Pepsi’s gamble worked?  So far, Alterian SM2 data shows Pepsi attracted more Super Bowl mentions and greater online reach than any Super Bowl advertisers.

What kind of online chatter occurred around the big game?  According to Initiative, 75% of all Super Bowl advertisers saw the number of blog posts about their companies double, and more than 30% of advertisers saw a three-fold increase in blogs. From YouTube to Hulu, websites easily allowed viewers to watch, vote and comment on their favorite commercials.  Even the NFL got into the social media game this year, encouraging fans to send tagged tweets and Flickr photos to the NFL for their website.

Twitter surged to an estimated 720,000 Super Bowl tweets, and based on Twitter chatter alone, Doritos was named the winner for “most effective brand to advertise on the Super Bowl telecast,” according to Mullen and Radian6’s BrandBowl 2010.  And for die-hard football fans, Cincinnati Bengal’s wide receiver Chad Ochocinco created his own online news network, OCNN, to showcase the opinions, videos, tweets and photos from Ochocinco and other football stars.

The social life of the Super Bowl online has taken off, and the benefits of broadband-powered media are heightening entertainment and building brand exposure to new and exciting levels.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 12:35 pm and is filed under Benefits of Broadband. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.