The Super Bowl XLIX Twittermania

Few people missed The Super Bowl last week. You might not have seen any actual American Football recently, but you will have almost certainly read about it, seen pictures, listened to Tom Brady answering questions about ‘Deflategate’, seen a dancing Shark, or witnessed Katy Perry being propelled through the air by a firework… Or maybe you were on Twitter last Sunday, and happened upon one of 28.4 million tweets that the event generated. With this representing an increase of 14% on last year’s 24.9 million tweets, its safe to say that Super Bowl twittermania was upon us.

The Super Bowl is interesting from a marketing perspective, as it is often seen as the forefront of what’s happening in marketing and advertising right now. For example, Audi was the first brand ever to use a hashtag in its Super Bowl ad 2011. Over 50 percent of Super Bowl ads now feature hashtags.

We’ve summarised what happened on Twitter during The Super Bowl for you to pick up any trends, ideas or inspiration.

By the end of the game, tweeters had generated a stunning 379,000 tweets per minute, with the biggest moment being when Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler intercepted a pass by Russell Wilson one yard from the goal line with 20 seconds left in the game – 395,000 tweets per minute (and pretty exciting football, too).

Katy Perry’s halftime show generated 284,000 tweets per minute – another huge moment, even though the shark messed up his moves.

Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski and Julian Edelman were the most-mentioned Patriots players on twitter during the live telecast, while Marshawn Lynch, Russell Wilson and Chris Matthews were the most-mentioned Seahawks players.

It seemed like everyone was tweeting during the game – so its unlikely to have gone under your radar.

The top three most-talked-about brands on Twitter during the game, from the coin toss to when the clock hits 0:00 (the live window) were:

McDonalds (@McDonalds) 634,310 mentions
Always (@Always) 455,695 mentions
Budweiser (@Budweiser) 371,900 mentions

We all know that the commercials are as integral to The Super Bowl as the sport itself, and this year had its share of engaging, funny, and shareable ads. According to TiVo, there were more serious, dramatic and sentimental commercial spots than during previous Super Bowls: No More, a charity that campaigns to end Domestic Violence, had a powerful 30 second spot – which was well timed after a difficult year for the NFL on the subject. Emotions ran high through most of the ads: a band of horses rescue their adorable puppy friend from wolves, a Nascar driver bonds with his son in his car, and CocaCola fixes cyber bullying when some soda gets accidentally spilled into a computer mainframe! Comedy and celebrity, however, took centre stage, with Mindy Kalling, Liam Neeson and Steve Buscemi appearing in fun, and funny, parodies.

Here’s this year’s top ten most-engaging Super Bowl commercials, according to TiVo:

1. Budweiser, “Lost Dog”

2. Joyful Heart Foundation – ‘911 Delivery’

3. Doritos, “Middle Seat”

4. Nationwide, “Invisible”

5. Supercell, “Angry Neeson”

6. Fiat, “Blue Pill”

7. Snickers, “Very Brady”

8. Avocados From Mexico, “First Draft Ever”

9. Coca-Cola, “Make It Happy”

10. Nissan, “With Dad”

TiVo also compared this year’s Super Bowl to the previous events, with some interesting numbers:

There were only three beer spots in this year’s game, half the number compared to the previous two years
There were five insurance spots, the combined total of the three prior Super Bowls
There were ten movie spots. More than in the past two years combined
NBC aired 27 promos during the game, one less than Fox last year
NBC aired 23 sixty second spots. Fox aired 20 last year

That’s it folks!