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Feels like the turn of the Century – Last night’s Super Bowl Advertising Winners

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Last night was a great night of football as the Los Angeles Rams came back to beat the Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl behind the performance of the Super Bowl, and more importantly, my fantasy football teams’ MVP Cooper Kupp.

But as we all know, the ads are the real selling point of the Super Bowl (aside from the absolutely fantastic halftime show). A 30-second spot on last night’s game cost $7 million, which theoretically could pay for over 1 billion impressions on Twitter. Brands surely want people to talk about their Big Game spots. So which ads did well? Which did not? I took to social media to see how the ads were received and talked about.

 

1st Winner – Crypto

One huge winner of the night was the Crypto Currency industry, by far the most talked-about brands from last night were Coinbase (180k) and FTX (360k) with crypto social media platform eToro having a respectable (15k).

The Coinbase ad was a particular winner, in my opinion, their simple QR Code ad had a low cost to create, and while I don’t have exact numbers, the website crashed… which may not be a good sign if you are wanting to store money with the company though.

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The phrase “QR Code” alone outpaced most brands, with over 97 thousand mentions on Twitter last night! Some of that QR code conversation was not completely positive, with internet security Twitter taking to the timeline to try to inform people on the dangers of unknown QR codes.

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Personally, I am a little skeptical of the volume of conversation, diving into the posts, many of which were promoting individual cryptocurrencies, I found a few accounts that were somewhat botlike in their post volumes, with some posting the same message dozens of times, and one, in particular, replying one of two messages to over 650 posts in just the 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm hour!

Nonetheless, these companies had a strong night on social media and their ads did the job they intended!

 

Non-Winner – Non-Crypto Newcomers

It is hard to make an ad that really resonates with people, especially when dozens of other brands are also trying to get their brands trending with their high-budget commercials. This is taken to another level when your brand is not well known to most people. Brands like Hologic, Cue Health, and Wall Box all had fewer than 1,000 mentions on Twitter. Not every ad is meant to resonate with the average consumer, some may be looking for specific audiences, but being beaten out by replies pushing select cryptocurrencies in a single hour have to be taken as a disappointment for some of these brands. You also should make sure your webpage gateways are working properly just in case someone is interested in learning more.

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Winner – Giveaways!

Taking a page from last year’s big winner in Mountain Dew, brands like Expedia (60k), Carvana (23k), and the aforementioned FTX (360K) accompanied their $7 million media spend with social media campaigns revolving around giveaways. And, unlike last year’s Mountain Dew ad, these brands did not give away another million dollars! Expedia was giving away $250k in credit, Carvana a few thousand dollars in gift cards, and FTX was giving away crypto coins. All three brands did really well compared to their industry competitors. Expedia blew away Turkish Airlines (2500) and Booking.com (3400); Carvana beat out Vroom (2300), and FTX beat out Coinbase. Showing the social amplification powers of giving things away for free!

 

Non-Winner – “Tesla Killers”

If it was not for the crypto ads, the theme for this Super Bowl may have been electric vehicles. Multiple car companies such as General Motors, BMW, Kia, and newcomer Polestar led the way with their electric vehicle ads. But all of these brands combined accounted for fewer mentions than Tesla’s 64k Tweets, and they did not even run an ad! Part of this was driven by a newcomer to the market Polestar, who made an ad that not-so-subtly took shots at the industry giant. Time will tell if the company, likely going public this year, made a good call with an ad that led to Tesla and its owner Elon Musk leading the way in their top words.

 

Winner – Chips!

I’ve really been a fan of what chip companies like Doritos, Cheetos, and Pringles have been doing with their ads recently. This year, it looks like chips, in general, were a hit in terms of Twitter conversation. Doritos and Cheetos worked together to launch their new Flamin’ Hot Doritos, and the ad collab led to over 25k mentions. Lay’s spoke to the inner comedy movie nerd in everyone with an ad featuring Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd, and the new Mrs. Rogen to the tune of 38k tweets. And while Pringles’s 8k showing is not a big winner, I still thought their ad was super clever, and it’s my list so there they are.

 

Bonus Winner – My High School taste in music!

Over 300k people Tweeted out #PepsiHalftime last night, in what was an awesome blast from the past, and my favorite halftime show for sure! Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent, Kendrick Lamar, and Eminem rocked the mic for a fantastic halftime show that reminded me I need to find my old CD book to break out those old mixtapes.

The sentiment was very high with 81% positive sentiment spurred on heavily by the 25-44-year-old age groups!

Fun note: “Limewire and iPod” started trending during the show with both keywords getting over 2,400 mentions. Between those trending words, the Rams winning the Super Bowl, and a new technology being the talk of the Super Bowl Ads, it is starting to feel like the early 2000s again.