Today, it has gotten to the point where a massive amount of people watching the Super Bowl are just as excited for the advertisements as they are the actual game itself. The Super Bowl is one of the only days of the year where viewers actually get really excited for commercial breaks. Not only is it the perfect time for a bathroom break, but it is when advertisers get to show their true colors to the public when it comes to creativity and cleverness. However, that is not all that there is to it. As we all know, we live in a multi-screen world, and the ways that marketers tie these multiple screens together is impressive. One of the most popular ways, however, is to mention social media in television commercials. With today being among the most important days in television advertising, Matt McGee of Marketing Land took it upon himself to see just how many times these different social networks were mentioned in the many commercials of the Super Bowl.
According to his article, McGee counted a total of 52 Super Bowl ads played, and of these, about 32 mentioned a social media site in some form or another. What is very impressive is that Twitter was mentioned in 26 of the 52 advertisements, which came out to exactly 50%. According to an article by McGee from a year ago, Twitter only received 8 mentions during the Super Bowl of 2011, during which there were a total of 59 advertisements.
For Facebook, the numbers did not prove to be quite as impressive. Facebook, during 2011’s Super Bowl, also received 8 mentions from advertisers, making a tie game between the site and Twitter. However, this year Facebook only got mentioned in 4 advertisements in total. Of the total 52 advertisements, that equals out to about 7.7%. Needless to say, Facebook was not nearly as popular for Super Bowl advertisers.
Now, not long ago I wrote on Google Plus’s new found fame as the number 2 social network on the web. However, Super Bowl advertisers seem to think otherwise, as the network was not even mentioned once. Apparently, the network even fell behind YouTube and Instagram, networks that were both mentioned once during Super Bowl ads.
So, why is this important? Well, not only does it show what networks bigger, more popular brands think are the most important for their marketing efforts, but it also shows that the race between Twitter and Facebook is much tighter than any numbers can show. Facebook has always been viewed as number one for marketing, but Super Bowl advertisers seem to think that Twitter is the most important place to send ad viewers. Now, sure this is probably because these brands wanted people talking about their products live on Twitter during the game. However, I do doubt that none of these marketers were thinking further into the future, and trying to send consumers to Twitter to engage with them for a more long term period. Either way, one of the country’s largest advertising periods was dominated by Twitter today, and that needed to be recognized.
