by Hayden Skoch-
If you are anything like me I would venture to guess that you watched at least a portion of the Super Bowl. Whether you are a die-hard Patriots fan, wanted to see Justin Timberlake’s halftime performance, love the ads, or are simply in it for the snacks, you probably took part in the festivities in one way or another. It is not new news that every year the Super Bowl airs some of the highest budget commercials of the year. These ads never fail to generate conversation and make a huge impact on consumer culture and trends.
Earlier this week I learned about a Twitter campaign called the #BrandBowl52. This year Twitter has decided to launch the hashtag #brandbowl in order to centralize Super Bowl ad-related conversation. On Monday morning after the Super Bowl, #BrandBowl will announce awards in several categories, recognizing brands with exceptional ads as well as exceptional content released exclusively over social media. One of the cool parts about this is that a brand doesn’t have to have an ad in the Super Bowl to be recognized. This opens the playing field (no pun intended) for smaller brands that want to actively engage consumers on Super Bowl Sunday but do not have the budget for airtime during the game.
Some of the Brand Bowl awards include MVP (highest percentage of all brand-related tweets), Blitz (most tweets per minute), Quarterback (most retweets) and Interception, an award for a brand without a national TV spot that drove the highest percentage of brand conversation. Industry-specific awards will be given in categories such as CPG, dining, entertainment, technology & telecommunications, automotive, alc-bev, home & healthcare, financial services, retail, and travel.
What I think is super interesting about the Brand Bowl is that it allows brands that are unable to afford airtime during the game to participate in the ad-festivities for free via Twitter. Additionally, I think the Brand Bowl will be impactful because it emphasizes how social media can create engagement and start a conversation in real-time.
Check out the #BrandBowl52 winners on Monday morning! Which 2018 Super Bowl commercials do you think made the largest splash on social media?
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I think this BrandBowl idea is really interesting and will definitely open up the advertising world more in regards to central conversations. Great post!
Thanks for the post on this topic Hayden! This is such an amazing idea and I bet it helped the small businesses a ton! Recognition during the Super Bowl is huge for companies that choose to partake in the festivities so for them to centralize the conversation is so cool!
Wow, this is fascinating! I wasn’t aware of this – thank you for sharing. When will we hear about the winners?
This is awesome! I didn’t keep up with the Super Bowl on actual game day because my timeline consisted more so of Kylie Jenner’s pregnancy than actual bowl coverage. With that said, I think that this is such a fascinating way to bring forward brands and get them to the forefront of consumers’ minds without them having to drop the unnecessary $5 million on a 30-second ad!
Interesting way for Twitter to get in on the Super Bowl action. I have a few questions and concerns about this though. For starters, how can smaller brands with no TVC during the game win? The announcement states that a brand must be mentioned during the game. Additionally, Twitter should probably be careful about the way they include brands with no TVC buy – the ones that do have TVC buys may not be happy about losing the spotlight. Unfortunately for Twitter, those brands also spend media dollars with the platform. I’ll be interested to see how this evolves as Twitter won’t want to lose potential media $$ from the big media spenders in the future.
Hayden – this article definitely stuck out to me. I had my eyes on the TV for most of the game, so I didn’t come by this competition on Twitter. I’m going to look into it and the winners soon. Super interesting and a great idea.
Some of the biggest news I saw the day following the game was the most and least successful Super Bowl Ads. This article further solidified how pertinent the role these companies play during these national sporting events. It makes me wonder what role these commercials will play years or even decades from now.
Even though I was not able to watch the Super Bowl, I did see some of the ads that aired on social media. Many brands came out strong and had some great content. The idea of the BrandBowl reminds me of the Doritos campaign I conducted my case study on.
The Brand Bowl is a fascinating concept to me. I’ve always wondered how much these ads work. A lot of the conversation about them is seen in retweets and likes, but even though I love the Doritos ads every year, I don’t think I’ve ever gone out the next day to get a bag. This shows that the conversation that happens from the ads on social media is sometimes more important than if the ad worked.
I think the #BrandBowl is a great way to get people talking about ads that have played during the Super Bowl. I absolutely know that I would have hopped on that hashtag if I knew it was a thing. There is so much conversation around Super Bowl ads in general, this hashtag would get the advertisement even more views.
This was a great idea! I was one of those people that didn’t watch any of the Super Bowl and missed out on the fun and creative advertisements. This campaign does a great job at providing a glimpse at what you might have missed. It’s also an effective way for brands to reach a wider audience.
The #BrandBowl was definitely a great way for people to keep up with the ads played during the Super Bowl- especially for those who missed it! The creation of the hashtag also opened the conversation up between users which seems like it could generate some pretty cool discussions. Thanks for sharing- I’m definitely going to scroll through the hashtag to check out any ads I missed during the game!
I was super excited about the #BrandBowl because I thought it was a great way for Twitter—a brand itself—to capitalize on a conversation that is already happening. Twitter paid attention to its users (everyone), and it knew that everyone talks about the ads in between plays and the halftime show. I talked to everyone I knew about it because it was finally an interactive way for us marketing nuts see more than just the aired content.
I think this brings up an interesting thought exercise. Do brands necessarily need large advertising campaigns to be front of mind now? Not just during the Super Bowl but in general. Maybe an end to TV commercials? (no such luck).
Hmmm what does this do to marketing budgets throughout America? Really curious to see the results in the future and how that will impact the selling of commercial spots next year.
I definitely agree that the Brand Bowl opens up the playing field for brands that cannot afford those bigger television spots. The Super Bowl is definitely an event that you want to participate in and gain that engagement given its widespread appeal. I wonder if this idea has the potential to expand to other large sports events.
The Brand Bowl sounds like an excellent idea, especially since Super Bowl ads are some of the most expensive ways to advertise and promote your brand. I think this idea of the Brand Bowl can be very beneficial for both the products being advertised, as well as the advertisement agencies trying to come up with catchy ideas to try to support the brand.