I'll admit it: I don't really care about watching the Super Bowl. The game feels slow, and I usually have work the next day. So I generally just focus on the fun parts of Super Bowl Sunday until the fourth quarter or so: prepping a bunch of wings, chasing them down with a beer or two, and, of course, watching the discussion about Super Bowl ads on social media ... and I'm not alone.
According to one study profiled by USA Today, 78% of Americans look forward to Super Bowl commercials more than the game. Once the game starts, these folks want to share their excitement and thoughts about the commercials with others: On Twitter, people shared 24.1 million tweets about the 2013 Super Bowl.
Yep, that's a lot of data.
One company decided to harness all of that social data to give us marketing geeks some fun insights into how the Super Bowl ads stacked up against each other.
Called the "'Big Game' Brand Showdown," this tool shows the top 10 brands based on sentiment and number of Twitter, blog, and forum mentions throughout the game. Here's the leaderboard from last year:
If you really want to geek out (I definitely do), you can dive even deeper into the data. You can examine the volume or sentiment by time frame (first quarter, halftime, post game, etc.) or brand name:
Right now, it's displaying data from last year's game, but it should start updating in real time just before the game starts.
There aren't a bunch of action items here, marketers. Basically, if you're looking forward to the ads on Sunday, this tool could be a fun little way to follow the trending commercials on social media -- and maybe even find some inspiration for your next blog post.
So sit back, relax, and enjoy Sunday for the football, commercials, or company you're with! I'll be using this free tool to enjoy the latter two. :)
What is your favorite part of the Super Bowl? If you're a commercial fan, let us know which brand you're most looking forward to watching in the comments below. If you're a football fan, check out this infographic comparing Bill Walsh's coaching tree to the PayPal Mafia.
