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).
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