Twitter has announced the winners of its annual #BrandBowl event, which recognizes the best Super Bowl tie-in campaigns across a range of categories.
This is the fourth year that Twitter has run its #BrandBowl, for which it took the lead from the growing number of brands looking to tap into the Super Bowl in real-time. In the past, some brands have seen such big success with their tweet tie-ins that their subsequent exposure has ended up matching, or even beating that of the big name brands who’ve spent millions securing a coveted Super Bowl ad spot. As such, it makes sense to give brand tweet efforts more focus.
The big winner (MVP) again this year was Pepsi, whose campaign revolving around the Halftime Show, and featuring The Weeknd, drove the largest overall share of conversation on the platform during the event.
Pepsi has now won the #BrandBowl MVP Award three out of four times thus far, and its sponsorship of the half-time show does appear to give it a head start in this respect. Maybe Twitter needs to review its criteria, or take Pepsi out of the running, maybe naming the award in the company’s honor instead.
Budweiser won the award for the most popular campaign without a national TV spot with its retro call-back campaign:
Meanwhile, T-Mobile saw the most retweets from a brand handle with this effort:
I mean, using the lure of winning a new phone seems like cheating a little bit, but if it works…
Disney’s preview of the upcoming ‘Falcon and The Winter Soldier’ show on Disney+ generated the most overall engagement:
While Verizon got Twitter’s nod for ‘Most Creative Play’ – the brand that best used Twitter to creatively breakthrough, beyond promoted Tweets and video.
Join us in support of small businesses! Reply with names of small businesses you ❤️ using #BigConcertSmallBiz. Then tune into Verizon on Twitter after #SBLV & you may see your shout-out featured live alongside music’s biggest stars at Verizon Big Concert for Small Business! pic.twitter.com/oC06su2wKO
— Verizon (@Verizon) February 7, 2021
And lastly, Indeed won the award for the campaign that best adjusted in real-time for its campaign which highlighted job opportunities from the brands who were advertising during the game.
There are some interesting uses of Twitter here – maybe not as creative as in year’s past, and as with most Super Bowl campaigns, most were heavy on the use of celebrities to boost their messaging. But still, there are some pointers to note from these campaigns – or maybe they’ll inspire you to do better with your own creative Tweet approach.
You can check out Twitter’s full #BrandBowl rundown here.
