The Super Bowl made be over, but it’s time to see if the ads paid off. For the brands that were willing to hedge serious money on Super Bowl spots, how did they engage fans on Facebook?
While the winners of Super Bowl 50 itself are straightforward, the champion commercials can be analyzed in a number of ways. We’ve been watching Facebook take on YouTube for video dominance and decided to look at which Super Bowl commercials had the best engagement on Facebook.
To analyze the engagement and campaigns of brands on their Facebook pages, we used our database to track likes, comments, and shares from each brand. We tracked from when the video was posted to midday after the Super Bowl.
Spike tracks social signals in real time, so we can see just which ads took off when they did and which were getting shared around the office the next day.
Entertainment Brands are Facebook Famous
The category with the highest total engagement was seen for the ads from movie brands. Half of the top 10 Super Bowl spots were movie trailers. The movies featured were part of existing franchises, and come along with already extensive fan bases.
Star-studded “Captain America: Civil War” was our most-engaging Super Bowl spot on Facebook. The third Captain America movie had over 5 million views, along with over 146,000 likes, 78,000 shares, and 10,000 comments.
Three of the movie trailers came from Marvel (“X-Men: Apocalypse”, “Captain America: Civil War”, and “Deadpool”), two from Walt Disney Studios (“Alice Through the Looking Glass” and “The Jungle Book” live-action version), one from the Bourne series, and one from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.
“Alice Through the Looking Glass” had the most shares of the Facebook Super Bowl brands, likely in part to Alan Rickman’s recent passing.
For movie brands, they’re already building hype and buzz leading up to release. They don’t need to use the momentum or clever branding of the Super Bowl to score engagement.
Super Bowl Pros. Still Pros.
There are some brands we expect to see every year. Budweiser. Coca-Cola. Taco Bell. Beverage brands, auto brands, mobile phone brands. This year, they didn’t disappoint on Facebook either.
T-Mobile scored the most comments and second most shares on their commercial that featured musical artist Drake and his song, “Hotline Bling”.
Their other ad, featuring Steve Harvey of the recent Miss Universe snafu, was ninth in our rankings. The Steve Harvey commercial was a rebuttal to a recent Verizon ad.
Stirring up a little controversy between competitors, using recent viral events, and featuring popular celebrities are all tactics that engage people and make videos more likely to be shared and discussed.
If we discount the entertainment brands, automotive brand Hyundai hits spots two, six, and 12 in the rankings. Hyundai had three spots in the Super Bowl this year, with one of the videos including Deadpool’s actor Ryan Reynolds, for a little brand synergy.
This video of Hyundai’s “The Chase” advertisement, saw over 15 million views on Facebook. YouTube reported it as the most-watched video on their platform.
Other brands that were in our most-engaging rankings included Mtn Dew, Coca-Cola, Bud Light, and Mars Inc.’s Snickers and Skittles candy brands. KFC’s video, featuring their well-known Colonel Sanders character, had over 8 million views on Facebook.
Pepsi sponsored the halftime show and though their ad itself didn’t get as much Facebook engagement, overall, they saw high engagement for their realtime posts throughout the game.
Newcomers That Played Right
Pokémon had the fourth most-engaging Super Bowl spot on Facebook, for their first-ever ad in the game. Commemorating their 20th birthday, the video took Pokémon right to the field.
Pokémon also feeds off the nostalgia of Millennials who remember the game of their childhood fondly. Their post to their video drove over 137,000 likes, 36,000 shares, and 6,400 comments. They built up buzz with graphics that combined Pokémon with the NFL, two generally unrelated areas of fandom.
Another big Super Bowl 50 brand that came of age in the Millennial age was Amazon. Its commercial on Facebook saw over 16 million views.
[fb_pe url=”https://www.facebook.com/Amazon/videos/10153574254233124/” bottom=”30″]
Like many other brands, Amazon used celebrities to make their video. Alec Baldwin, Missy Elliott, and former Miami Dolphins quarterback, Dan Marino starred in the video. Amazon used teaser videos, promotions, and other content that led up to the big ad. Community managers were quick to respond to Amazon customers who used the posts to also voice their questions.
Missing in Action
Surprisingly, there were brands that didn’t publish or link their Super Bowl ads to Facebook. Some brands simply didn’t have well-maintained Facebook pages, and others seem to have dropped the ball.
Campbell’s, which has a robust presence on social, didn’t include their Super Bowl ad on their Facebook. A recent video on their page has seen over 1.2 million views, but their Super Bowl commercial is oddly missing.
The other brands that didn’t link or post their Super Bowl ads were: Advil, OIC is Different campaign, Quicken Loans 514, M&T Bank, UnitedHealthcare, and Fitbit. UnitedHealthcare’s video saw 1.3 million views on YouTube, but didn’t appear on Facebook.
Who Won, Facebook or YouTube?
How much of an impact did the ads really have? According to Adweek, YouTube reported 300,000 hours were spent watching Super Bowl commercials and teasers on the platform during the game, and overall there were nearly 4 million hours of ads and teasers viewed so far.
Facebook said yesterday that 60 million people discussed the Super Bowl there, with over 200 million posts, comments and likes.
People engage with content differently between Facebook and YouTube, so we’re comparing apples and oranges. Still, there are some brands that managed to make the top 10 for both social networks.
With the big game over, brands will have to see if their big bets on Super Bowl advertisements paid off.
As we jump into the next sports seasons, social marketers can look ahead to engage sports fans. Our first ever whitepaper shares the social media strategies that work. These tactics can engage fans of all sports, not only NFL. And as we enter baseball season, you can be ready to make your sports content score hits across social media.
