Twitter was a pretty entertaining place to be last night’s Super Bowl. In fact for many people, the online commentary was far more engaging than what the live reporters were doing on TV. So its no surprise that brands tried many different ways to insert themselves into the huge Super Bowl conversation that was taking place. Here are the five broad categories of how they tried to do it:
1) Act drunk
JCPenney isn’t usually known for its prowess on social media (quite the opposite actually.) But on this occasion, its weird, gimmicky strategy of sending out misspelled and semi-incoherent tweets got it plenty of attention, not just from Twitter users, but other brands as well.
Who kkmew theis was ghiong tob e a baweball ghamle. #lowsscorinh 5_0
— JCPenney (@jcpenney) February 2, 2014
Toughdown Seadawks!! Is sSeattle going toa runaway wit h this???
— JCPenney (@jcpenney) February 3, 2014
.@JCPenney We know football goes great with Coors Light, but please tweet responsibly.
— Coors Light (@CoorsLight) February 3, 2014
Go home JC Penney you’re drunk. RT @jcpenney: Who kkmew theis was ghiong tob e a baweball ghamle. #lowsscorinh 5_0
— Jared Keller (@jaredbkeller) February 3, 2014
Eat a #SNICKERS, you’re not you when you’re hungry RT @JCPenney Who kkmew theis was ghiong tob e a baweball ghamle. #lowsscorinh 5_0
— SNICKERS® (@SNICKERS) February 3, 2014
People got excited at the possibility that someone may have hacked into JCPenney’s Twitter account, or that its social media manager might actually be drunk. But the explanation was far more mundane, and arguably it may have undone all the buzz JCPenney had been getting before.
Oops…Sorry for the typos. We were #TweetingWithMittens. Wasn’t it supposed to be colder? Enjoy the game! #GoTeamUSA pic.twitter.com/e8GvnTiEGl
— JCPenney (@jcpenney) February 3, 2014
2) Interact with every other brand
Brands weren’t afraid to engage other brands and even competitors. This included playful teasing, one-upping each other and even friendly endorsements, which made things pretty interesting to watch if you were following the brands.
Did you know that #ghibli means hot air? Seems appropriate. CC: @Maserati_HQ #GoodToBeBad
— Jaguar USA (@JaguarUSA) February 3, 2014
Nice @VerizonWireless, but ours is bigger #humandoritoschip #Doritos
— Doritos (@Doritos) February 3, 2014
PB and chocolate are getting frisky @Butterfinger This could get messy @Tide #GetsItOut #SB48 https://t.co/8spiWZsbgS
— Tide (@tide) February 3, 2014
3) Insert your product into everything you say
We’ve previously praised DiGiorno Pizza for its real-time social media activity, especially when it started commenting on NBC’s live performance of The Sound of Music. On this occasion, DiGiorno brought back its pizza puns, but they started to wear a little thin after a while. Maybe it was just being …ahem..cheesy on purpose?
THAT PLAY CALL WAS SO BAD I HALF EXPECT A COLD PIZZA WITH THE WRONG TOPPINGS TO SHOW UP THREE HOURS FROM NOW #DiGiorNOYOUDIDNT #SB48
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) February 3, 2014
A LOT OF THESE COMMERCIALS REMIND ME OF YOU, DELIVERY PIZZA. NOT SO HOT #DiGiorNOYOUDIDNT #superbowl
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) February 3, 2014
YO, YOUR TEAM REMINDS ME OF DELIVERY PIZZA. TOOK ALMOST THREE HOURS TO GET WHERE IT’S SUPPOSED TO GO #DiGiorNOYOUDIDNT
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) February 3, 2014
.@BrunoMars is this song about waiting too long for pizza delivery #SuperBowI
— DiGiorno Pizza (@DiGiornoPizza) February 3, 2014
4) Give away a crap load of money.
Esurance found a way to dominate the conversation last night by offering to give somebody $1.5 million if they tweeted using its #EsuranceSave30 hashtag. That’s a pretty big incentive to use a hashtag, and of course #EsuranceSave30 is trending nationally now. Esurance’s reasoning for the giveaway was that since it aired its Super Bowl commercial after the game ended, it paid 30% less than all the other brands, a figure that translates to $1.5 million. To highlight its tagline of passing on savings directly to its customers, Esurance said it was going to do just that, telling Twitter users that it would randomly giveaway the money to any Twitter user who tweeted the hashtag #Esurance between 4pm ET on Sunday to 4am ET on Tuesday. Here’s the commercial it aired:
5) Act like you’re above it all
At last year’s Super Bowl, Oreo won social media, and kick started real-time social media marketing last year with its infamous “black out” tweet. This year, it simply opted to not enter the contest, with yet another “blackout tweet.”
Hey guys…enjoy the game tonight. We’re going dark. #OreoOut
— Oreo Cookie (@Oreo) February 2, 2014
I suppose it thought it couldn’t top itself?
