8 Brands That Played In The Realtime Marketing Superbowl: Which Was Your Favorite?

You know that it’s time to take realtime marketing seriously when it hits the Superbowl. Last night’s event was full of social media, hashtags and second-screen experiences. But it also offers some stellar examples of brands who had the right attitude, preparation, tools and team to create some very powerful marketing initiatives, in realtime.

The game itself drew a record 24.1 million tweets. But the moment that generated the highest velocity of tweets? The power outage, which Twitter says earned a game-winning 231,500 tweets per minute.

And many advertisers took advantage of this huge realtime conversation, finding ways to participate in the conversation with clever, entertaining and engaging content. Here are 8 of our favorite brand tweets from last night’s game — which is your favorite?

 1. Oreo Cookie: The lights went out in the New Orleans Superdome at about 7:25 local time, a few seconds into the third quarter of the game. About 20 minutes later, @Oreo sent out a tweet saying “Power out? No problem.” with a link to a gorgeous ad showing an Oreo Cookie and the headline “You can still dunk in the dark.” The tweet went viral – about 12 hours later it has generated nearly 14,500 retweets, and almost 5,000 favorites.

Oreo was also the first brand to incorporate Instagram into its call to action, resulting in thousands of new followers on that platform.

2. Tide: Just a few minutes later, in a brilliant example of brand-jacking a hashtag, @Tide sent a tweet saying “we can’t get your #blackout, but we can get your stains out,” along with an ad. Tally so far: 1292 ReTweets, and 317 favorites.

3. Audi decided to go cheeky, taking a dig at competitor Mercedes, which had Superdome naming rights. “Sending some LEDs to the @mbusa Superdome right now…,” @Audi tweeted during the blackout, drawing nearly 10,000 RTs, nearly 3,000 Favorites, and many (mostly positive) comments :

4. Volkswagen USA used the power outage to offer a reprise of the brand’s commercial spot, which had run earlier in the game: “Lost power during the Big Game… Don’t worry, #GetHappy,” @VW tweeted, adding a link to its spot on YouTube.

5. One: This non-profit movement to fight against extreme poverty offered a reminder that, for many around the world, power is not something to be taken for granted. “Half a billion people in Africa NEVER have power,” the @OneCampaign Twitter account reminded us during the power outage, along with a link to learn more.

6. PBS also went competitive, with a cheeky reminder that “this might be a good time think about alternative programming. #SuperBowlBlackOut #WeHaveDowntonPBS.” The tone was perfect, and drew many favorable comments from fans, in addition to thousands of retweets.

7. Walgreens kept it simple but relevant – and it worked: “We do carry candles. #SuperBowl,” @Walgreens tweeted, earning thousands of retweets and many favorable comments:


8. Calvin Klein: Finally, for those ladies who felt that Beyonce’s half-time show didn’t offer enough <ahem> content targeted to them, @CalvinKlein obliged with a nicely-timed Vine video:

“What’s happening is marketers are generating content and interacting with people all throughout the game,” Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at the Kellogg School of Management told Forbes.

This kind of realtime interaction takes real preparation. The graphic that Oreo tweeted out was created within minutes by a team at 360i, the cookie brand’s digital agency of record.  According to AdAge, decisions were made so quickly because key team members from both the client and the agency were sitting together at a mission control center set up to monitor social media response to the brand’s Superbowl ad campaign. This team included two brand team members from Oreo, and nearly a dozen creatives, strategists, community managers and social-media listeners.

“What impresses the most is how well their organizations must be wired to move that quickly,” Campbell Soup Head of Digital Marketing & Social Media Adam Kmiec wrote on his blog yesterday. “Speed, in social, wins. It always has. But, today, it’s not just speed in social. It’s speed in everything you do in marketing.”

Is your organization wired to move this quickly?

And: which of the 8 is your favorite?

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