Forget Tom Brady: Bud Light, Mr. Peanut, Verizon Win Big During the Super Bowl
*By Chloe Aiello*
Julian Edelman might be the MVP of the Super Bowl, but the #MVP award for Super Bowl brands goes to Planters' Mr. Peanut. And the Patriots may have actually won the Big Game, but the trophy for best advertisement went to Verizon or Bud Light ー depending on the audience.
While the products these brands were peddling could not have been more different, one thing they all had in common was that their ad strategies went way beyond a pricey game-time TV spot to also engage potential customers online.
"One of the things we did see with brands over the Super Bowl were the ones with the highest mentions and the biggest buzz were the ones that sort of carried the advertising conversation online," Salesforce ($CRM) Vice President of Product Marketing Rob Begg told Cheddar on Monday.
Salesforce [ranked Super Bowl advertisers](https://www.salesforce.com/company/news-press/stories/2019/02/020419-f/) by global mentions on Twitter ($TWTR) and found Bud Light and its "Game of Thrones"-themed ads topped the list of most buzzed about brands, followed closely by Pepsi, Budweiser, Doritos, and Avocados from Mexico.
"Bud Light mirrored what was happening on the screen with what was happening on Twitter ー the same thing with Avocados from Mexico," Begg said.
Twitter also recognized Bud Light as the #Blitz award winner in its #BrandBowl for having the highest velocity of tweets per minute during the game, related to its "Game of Thrones" commercial. But by Twitter's metrics, Mr. Peanut won the #MVP award for generating the most brand-related tweets during the Big Game.
"They ran a really smart sweepstakes on Twitter and were giving things away during the game. Their first giveaway was a $10,000 cash prize in a Planters can and they continue that conversation throughout the game, which is really smart," Ryan Oliver, Twitter head of brand strategy, told Cheddar.
Twitter's #QuarterBack award, which recognized most retweets on a single tweet, went to Marvel for [its "Avengers: Endgame" spot tweet](https://twitter.com/MarvelStudios/status/1092203843071270912), which currently has about 90,000 retweets. Franks Red Hot won the #Interception award for having the highest percentage of brand conversation without running a national spot. And #VideoReplay, or the award for the brand with the most video views on a single tweet, went to Verizon ($VZ), for its "The Team That Wouldn't Be Here," commercial that featured 12 NFL players who owe their lives to first responders. [That video](https://twitter.com/verizon/status/1092206795110731776) currently has more than 18.8 million views on Twitter.
Verizon also stole the spotlight on YouTube. Vice President Tara Walpert Levy said it generated the most game day views, followed closely by Amazon's "Not Everything Makes the Cut" commercial that showed failed Alexa applications, and Jeep's "Big Game Blitz" rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner with OneRepublic.
"We saw a lot of people watching ads again or for the first time during the game, Walpert Levy said. "We saw strong interest in purpose-driven ads and humor-driven ads."
Even as preliminary ratings coming out of CBS tease a downward trend in viewership for the biggest night in U.S. sports, overall advertisement viewership on YouTube surged 58 percent since last year, and 78 percent on mobile.
That may be bad news for networks, but a proliferation of viewership and engagement across multiple platforms is good for sports, Walpert Levy said.
"I think what that does overall is quite good for sports even if it means it's spread across a more fragmented set of players offering that content. People are engaging more with sports than ever before and a broader viewer set is involved," she said.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/youtube-recaps-biggest-super-bowl-ads).
After two incredibly close games, the Super Bowl matchup is set. On February 13th, at the SoFi stadium in Inglewood, California, the Los Angeles Rams will face off in their home stadium against the Cincinnati Bengals. After 54 Super Bowls where a home team never hosted the game on its field, it will now happen for the second year in a row, after Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Bucs last year. Speaking of Brady, ESPN dropped a bombshell of a headline Saturday that Tom Brady was set to retire after 22 seasons and seven rings. To discuss all the latest NFL news, Anthony Tall, President of Miracle Sports Group, joins Cheddar News.
In January alone, the gaming sector has seen three major acquisitions. Yesterday, Sony added to the flurry of M&A activity in the gaming space, snatching up game developer 'Bungie' for $3.6 billion dollars. Renee Gittins, executive director at the International Gaming Developers Association, joins Cheddar News to discuss.
NFL legend Tom Brady says he is done playing football after 22 seasons. Cheddar News speaks with Trey Wingo, Chief NFL Analyst at Pro Football Network, about Brady announcing his retirement.
Greg Bishop, Senior Writer for Sports Illustrated, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says Tom Brady's legacy is all about 'progress' and expects the future Hall of Famer to bolster his entrepreneurial ventures following his retirement.
Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has been a driving force for youth mentorship since 1904. The nonprofit organization is launching its annual Big Draft campaign this month in partnership with the NFL, and Artis Stevens, the first Black CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, joined Cheddar to discuss the push for adding more "Bigs" as mentors on his one-year anniversary leading the non-profit organization. "While the NFL is recruiting and drafting more players, they're also helping us to draft more mentors and, particularly, men all the way from across February to all the way to April of this year," Stevens explained.
On this episode of Cheddar Reveals, Jim Riordan, Director of the MBA Sport Management program at Florida Atlantic University, breaks down the successes, failures, and chaos of the first seven months of the Name, Image, Likeness policy in college athletics; Adi Kunalic, President of Opendorse, discusses the first-ever association-wide deal in college athletics between Opendorse and the NAIA, and how Opendorse is marketing and educating student-athletes to make the most of their NIL deal potential; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'Predicting a Pro'.
Jim Riordan, Director of the MBA Sport Management program at Florida Atlantic University, joins Cheddar Reveals to break down the successes, failures, and chaos of the first seven months of the Name, Image, Likeness policy in college athletics.
Adi Kunalic, President of Opendorse, joins Cheddar Reveals to discuss the first-ever association-wide deal in college athletics between Opendorse and the NAIA, and how Opendorse is marketing and educating student-athletes to make the most of their NIL deal potential.
With the Beijing Winter Olympics set to get underway on Friday, Dan Wolken, a national columnist for USA Today, joined Cheddar News to break down the big storylines as the pandemic and international conflicts threaten to cast a cloud over the event that is aspirationally seen as a beacon of international cooperation. Wolken noted specific issues over cybersecurity for visiting athletes and disputes over human rights leading to a diplomatic boycott have been making waves even before the opening ceremony. "So you've got sort of these barbs going back and forth already between the Americans and the Chinese, and things haven't even started yet," he said. "We don't even know what's going to happen once the games start and people actually start winning medals."
