There’s no debate about it. The most valuable player in this year’s Super Bowl was the hashtag.
During Sunday’s presentation of Super Bowl XLVIII, the war waged between the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos was important to sports fan. But the Big Game is a huge day for advertisers, as well, with nearly 110 million TV viewers and the average 30-second commercial running $4 million.
With many considering this year’s Super Bowl more critically important than usual for advertisers and marketers to study (as it’s the first Super Bowl with social media operating at such hugely pervasive levels across the global landscape), the advertising world now looks to the examples and trends witnessed yesterday to determine what works best for mass advertising in the digital age.
According to a number of marketing pros who have since weighed in on the matter, it’s clear that the hashtag was the standout force in yesterday’s advertising blitz.
For the third straight year, Marketing Land’s #Hashtag Bowl presented by HootSuite tracks the Super Bowl TV ads and tallies the social media mentions updated live during Super Bowl 48. To compare, in the 2012 #Hashtag Bowl, only 25 percent of all national commercials mentioned hashtags or social media accounts. That more than doubled in the 2013 Hashtag Bowl when more than half of all TV ads had a hashtag or some social media mention.
With so many Super Bowl commercials released before the game this year, it’s evident that era of Super Bowl ads debuting during the big game is a thing of the past. Advertisers have much more to gain by milking the Super Bowl season and letting the world enjoy these high-profile ads for longer stretches of time.
According to MarketingLand, before Sunday, 2014 Super Bowl spots had already generated 130 million views and one million social actions.
“If YouTube views are an indicator of who’s winning best with consumers, hand the trophy over to Budweiser and its #BestBuds ad that features a little puppy that keeps running back to be with the famous Clydesdale horses,” says Danny Sullivan of MarketingLand.
To recap all the findings and post-game advertising analysis from the #Hashtag Bowl, click here.