Super Bowl social media strategies—how brands are downplaying X and focusing on TikTok

Drumstick, the ice cream cone brand, is cold on X, so far, during the rollout of its debut Super Bowl campaign. The brand has posted multiple videos to TikTok and Instagram teasing its commercial but it hasn’t posted publicly to X since November 2022, right after billionaire Elon Musk bought the company formerly known as Twitter. Drumstick’s Super Bowl push includes a commercial starring comedian Eric Andre and a stunt to make the Monday after the Big Game a national holiday. The brand has posted 10 times to Instagram and five to TikTok since announcing the ad earlier this month. @drumstick The day after the Big Game should be a national holiday, what do you say? 👀 Hit our link in bio to sign our #DrumstickMonday ♬ original sound - Drumstick Its social media game plan thus far illustrates the possible debate of utilizing X this year as a Super Bowl marketing platform, a role it has long held. Meanwhile, TikTok is pushing to reorient sports’ biggest commercial opportunity around its short-video service, according to advertising leaders. Agencies are also considering YouTube, Instagram and Reddit in new ways, according to advertisers, while Instagram’s Threads, a direct competitor to X, is an option for brands this year for the first time. More news: Creator and influencer trends to know about “Brands are always going to be leery about any sort of platform where the audience’s mindset isn’t open to brand messaging,” said Amy Luca, head of social at agency Media.Monks. “So, I think it’s going to be a tough year for X.” Media.Monks is working with two brands on their social media strategies for the game, to pair with commercials, but Luca declined to provide specifics. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs “The winners, I think in the Super Bowl, you’ll find TikTok is going to definitely benefit a lot from it,” Luca said. “YouTube always is spending a lot of time and effort courting creators and advertisers with Shorts … Where you’re seeing a lot of the reactive content, it is definitely showing up on TikTok, it’s showing up on Instagram Stories.” X is not out of the conversation by any means, according to multiple advertising executives, some of whom spoke with Ad Age on condition of anonymity. “It’s just not the tip of the spear any longer in social media war rooms,” said one of those execs, who works with one official Super Bowl advertiser and more than six other brands that activate around the game. A representative for Froneri-owned Drumstick did not return a request for comment. More news: What viewers want and don’t want in Super Bowl ads Organic and dark post approaches Many brands could post organically on X during the game even though they have not been on the platform, in some cases, for more than a year. Also, some brands “dark post” on X, which means they buy ads that appear in the target audience’s feeds but don't show up as a public post on the brand’s page. The fact that brands are dark posting on X speaks for itself about how they view the service, not wanting to be open about participation, the ad exec said. Not all Super Bowl brands are quiet on X, though. BetMGM is running an ad with Tom Brady, and the all-time great quarterback will be posting on X during the game, BetMGM agency Highdive told Ad Age last week. Also, earlier this month Oreo teased its return to Super Bowl on X. That’s a big endorsement for the platform—in 2013, Oreo was a pioneer on Twitter during the blackout game in New Orleans. We won’t keep you in the dark for long 💡 2.11.24 pic.twitter.com/a9BuYUrpKE— OREO Cookie (@Oreo) January 14, 2024 On Wednesday, Pringles revealed on Instagram and elsewhere—but not on X—that Chris Pratt would be in its Super Bowl ad. Pringles hasn’t had a public post on X since October 2022. “As with any significant management or ownership change on a platform on which we advertise, we are pausing new posts on X until we can more fully understand the impact,” a representative for Pringles, which is owned by Kellanova, said in an email. “We will continue to closely monitor the situation. In the meantime, stay tuned on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok for more hints on what Pringles has in store ahead of the Big Game.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Pringles (@pringles) Mondelēz International, which owns Oreo, also is promoting Ritz during the game, not with a commercial, but on social media. And times have changed since Oreo’s 2013 “dunk in the dark” tweet: Mondelēz brands are active on TikTok and Instagram this year, too. X, when it was still Twitter, was a social media mainstay for the Super Bowl for more than a decade. Brands revolutionized real-time marketing on the platform by conversing with fans (and other brands) during the game. However, in recent months, X has fallen out of favor among some brands that have been concerned about potentially harmful content. Now, marketers must make some decisions about the Super Bowl—some will post organically to X, some will pay to advertise there and some appear to be steering clear. On Tuesday, Coors Light teased its Super Bowl commercial but did not promote the spot on X. Its last original public post on the platform was in September 2023. Marcelo Pascoa, VP of marketing for Molson Coors, said the brewer is considering different digital and social platforms as it finalizes its media plan, to understand what the roles of each platform may be. Recent news: Coors Light ad to feature fans on its silver beer train And Procter & Gamble-owned Bounty, which does not have an in-game commercial but is promoting a campaign on social media tied to Super Bowl festivities, has not so far done so on X. Its last public post on the platform was in October 2023. Bounty’s campaign is tied to chicken wings, and already the brand has commented on one of Drumstick’s TikTok posts, which was the type of brand-to-brand banter that used to be the exclusive domain of Twitter. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Bounty Paper Towels (@bountypapertowels) “We set out to intercept key conversations around playoffs and Super Bowl by teaming up with notable ‘NFL wingmen,’ all while highlighting Bounty as the wingman you can’t live without during a time wing eating is at its highest of the year,” Mandy Ciccarella, communications director, Bounty, told Ad Age. “Through our ‘Wingmen’ social series across YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, fans get interactive behind-the-scenes access to these NFL duos and their saucy stories, all over a plate of wings and Bounty.” When asked if the brand would post on X, Ciccarella only said: “We’ve seen how NFL teams are winning over a younger generation of fans on social media through video content and ‘Bounty Wingman’ is a video-centric campaign.” Super Bowl commercials Tracking the latest brand and agency plans Enter here Fewer mentions There are signs that Super Bowl talk has quieted down on X compared to last year. As of Tuesday, there were about 8,100 pre-game mentions of the Super Bowl on social media channels, according to stats from Sprinklr, a social media analytics company. Sprinklr’s social media stats mostly capture conversation on X. There were about 42,200 pre-game mentions around the same time last year. Sprinklr’s data from last year covered the month of January, so there is still time this year for conversation around the game to pick up on X, but it appears to be trending lighter. This year’s activity is still close to the level of conversation detected in 2022, the year before Twitter was sold, according to Sprinklr’s data. X did not return a request for comment. The company, and its CEO Linda Yaccarino, have been making moves to secure advertiser trust this year. Yaccarino met with core partners at CES in Las Vegas and discussed new brand safety tools, including a deal with Integral Ad Science, a third-party firm that can report on brand suitability metrics. Integral Ad Science helps brands place ads on within X’s new video feed so they don’t appear next to material that falls outside of their brand standards. However, it’s not just brand safety questions that have some brands looking elsewhere. There also is increased competition from TikTok. “TikTok has pushed its Pulse ads and out-of-home,” said Matt Higgins, VP of strategy at Blue Hour Studios, a social media agency within Horizon Media. TikTok Pulse ads are a way for brands to buy inventory that runs next to vetted creators, and out-of-home digital billboards are part of TikTok’s new ad network. Another agency exec said that TikTok is more aggressive this year scooping up ad dollars. The platform is asking for up to $500,000 from brands to pay for premium ad inventory during the game, at $12 to $15 CPMs, cost per thousand views, the ad exec said, which is significantly more than last year. TikTok is offering bundles of TopView ads, which appear when a person opens the app, and shopping ads, a person familiar with the deals told Ad Age. Campaigns with “premium” ad units can run beyond the game, this person said. Also: Creator and influencer trends to know about right now For a brand with a nearly $7 million, 30-second ad during the game, TikTok is a place to jumpstart a new community, Higgins said. And brands are turning to TikTok to reach younger audiences that might not even be watching the game, Higgins said. “What TikTok reinforced, and it’s something we really focus on, is subcultures in social media,” Higgins said, “subcultures focused on everything that’s happening around the game itself and they may not even pay attention to the score.” Brands such as Bounty, NYX, Ritz and Pringles have been commenting on posts from other brands on TikTok ahead of the game. NYX has a regional ad this year, while Pringles will once again air a national Super Bowl spot. @nyxcosmetics if anyone’s got me it’s her☝️🏆💋 #relatable #football #MVP #lipliner ♬ Cheering and applause - Official Sound Studio Instead of “dunk in the dark” tweets, brands are looking for Stanley cup moments on TikTok, Higgins said, referencing the way the tumbler-maker juiced sales by engaging with a fan on TikTok last year. The fan’s car was totaled and the only item left unscathed was her Stanley cup, giving the brand a perfect opening. Updated war rooms Teresa Shiang, senior director and head of social at Ogilvy New York, said that X has fallen lower on the priority list for some brands, but the platform and its leadership make a compelling case that marketers need to be there. “We’re still monitoring Twitter, or X, very closely,” Shiang said, “and I think Twitter is still very much coming to us and saying, ‘Look there’s just no other platform where you know, news and moments break in real time like Twitter. And I do agree with that, I think, given the nature of the platform.” Brands will be on X organically—largely to follow the conversations trending on the platform during the Big Game and reply to posts or comments they’re mentioned in—but few of them have a paid media strategy, Shiang said. “With any of these clients I’m working on these days, there’s not a Twitter media plan for the Super Bowl,” Shiang said. “They’re not treating Twitter as a priority for anything that we’re making a plan or making content around.” Social news: Inside the TikTok cruise brand-creator partnership Instead, Ogilvy’s clients are largely shifting their Super Bowl social media strategies to TikTok and Instagram, so they’re focused on planning out and creating short-form video content to run during the game. Because of the larger amount of work that goes into filming and editing video content compared to writing up a 280-character text post, some of those brands began mapping out their short-form video strategy as far back as November, Shiang said. Roughly 75% of the Reels and TikTok videos that those brands will upload during the Super Bowl are being created ahead of time, but the other 25% will be filmed, edited and posted in real-time in response to trending conversations that pop up during the game, she said. And that new prioritization of video content in brands’ social strategies is reshaping the traditional composition of the Super Bowl war room, she added. “When I think about you know who needed to be in the war room before, it was mostly your copywriters that could write really quickly for social, and community managers,” Shiang said. “But now that the platform mix is opening up and we’re going into platforms like Instagram and TikTok that need video content, we’re kind of staffing that war room model a little bit differently and pulling in content creators. We’re also pulling in designers and social creatives who can make things on the spot.” Ogilvy is also looking to the comments sections of TikTok and Instagram as a new medium for joining in on the buzz around the half-time show or viral moments that arise from the Super Bowl, she said. “I think from a commenting and community management play, TikTok is definitely a really key [platform] that we have our eyes on,” Shiang said. Contributing: Lindsay Rittenhouse, Jon Springer Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs

Super Bowl social media strategies—how brands are downplaying X and focusing on TikTok

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