How much of a boost did brands that advertised during the Super Bowl get in social media mentions the day of the big game? A fairly significant one, according to Adobe Digital Index research. Super Bowl advertisers had 6.2 times as many social mentions on Feb. 3 as they did for their 30-day average. The term "Super Bowl" garnered 4.9 million mentions, more than 20 times its average.
Out of the 30 in-game advertisers, Radio Shack was the social media winner, with a 22-times increase in social mentions, thanks to its ad packed with 1980s icons, including Mary Lou Retton, Twisted Sister's Dee Snyder, Alf, Ponch, Kid (and Play), Hulk Hogan and Chucky.
As previously noted, marketers have a great opportunity to capitalize on social media marketing during the Super Bowl, and many already saw large gains in their social media mentions during the week leading up to the game. Chevrolet, for instance, garnered a serious spike in social media chatter on Jan. 28, the day it released a teaser TV ad for its Super Bowl spot.
Five marketers had more mentions than any other advertiser or sponsor: Coca Cola, with "It's Beautiful" and "Going All the Way" spots, earned 169,013 social media mentions; Ford, a Super Bowl sponsor, earned 164,300; Chevrolet, with its cow love "Romance" spot, garnered 150,161 mentions; and Doritos' "Crash the Super Bowl" efforts earned 122,045 mentions.
But marketers didn't necessarily have to buy an ad to gain big in social media. JCPenney, despite having no TV ad air during the game, had 118,201 social mentions, more than 25 times its 30-day average (4726) thanks to its unorthodox mittens tweeting strategy.
Not surprisingly, the Super Bowl did drive significant chatter for the brands that did buy the game, as seen here in this chart comparing the social media presence of 10 Super Bowl advertisers to the mentions their competitors were getting.
Twelve in-game advertisers who did buy TV ads saw social media mentions increase by five times or higher than their 30-day average, with Anheuser-Busch scoring the best social media return on Super Bowl Sunday: Anheuser-Busch (19 times more social media mentions); CarMax (18 times); Axe (13 times); Oikos (12 times); Chobani (9.5 times); Intuit (9 times); T-Mobile (7.5 times); Go Daddy (7.3 times); Doritos (7 times); Snickers (5.8 times); Squarespace (5.4 times); and Pepsi (5 times). Sponsors Papa Johns and Bose also increased social media mentions, with Papa Johns earning nine times as many mentions and Bose earning four times as many mentions.
Adobe Digital Index defines social media mentions for this research to include public social mentions on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, G+, Tumblr, Reddit, and YouTube.
