The ExactTarget Blog Super Bowl Blackout: How to Use Social …

The ExactTarget Blog Super Bowl Blackout: How to Use Social …

The lights went out in New Orleans last night just after the halftime show of the Super Bowl, the outage caused a 35 minute delay in the biggest game of the year. While the 49ers and Ravens did their best to stay limber during the stoppage, social media users and several brands had some fun with the situation.

The Super Bowl blackout is a textbook example of a messaging opportunity for brands. With all eyes on New Orleans, savvy marketers jumped into the conversation, bringing their own brand’s perspective to the unexpected, buzz-worthy event.

Oreo Leaps into the Top 5 Brands with Buzz
We’ve twice looked at the most buzzed about Super Bowl advertising brands leading up to the Big Game, in this post and this post. Oreo Cookies was not near the top 10 leading up to Sunday. Over the past 24 hours, however, we’ve seen the little sandwich cookie, who’s social prowess we’ve touched on in the past, leap firmly into the top five most mentioned Super Bowl brands. True, Oreo’s actual Super Bowl commercial finally aired during the game, but a huge part of Oreo’s conversation share today has been driven by their outstanding, ludicrously quick reaction to the lights going out in Louisiana.


The Tweet has been Retweeted over 14,800 times thus far (by running the exact language of the Tweet through Salesforce Marketing Cloud), the grand total is closer to 26,000 Retweets, which accounts for those that Retweeted it with added comments. Oreo saw a sharp rise in mentions just after the Tweet went live.

Buzzfeed details how team Oreo managed to get the post up so quickly.

Takeaway: Be brave. Yes, the Oreo team was on hand with decision makers at the ready, but to push content that quickly without much time to think about the potential impact is a risk. A risk that delivered.

Audi Takes a Fun Jab at the Competition
Audi, also landing in the top 10 buzzed brands over the past 24 hours, had a slightly different approach to the blackout. The German automaker got in on the trending conversation by having some fun with the fact that competing Mercedes sponsors the SuperDome.

Takeaway: Just look at the string of reactions to the Audi Tweet. For the most part, users were impressed by the playful dig. Keep your tone positive so it’s not too hard on your competitors. Also, this showcases the importance of keeping tabs on your competition. If news is happening and your brand is involved, you never know when your competitors may attempt to have a bit of a laugh at your brand’s expense.

Calvin Klein Takes Advantage of the Latest Platforms
Calvin Klein landed in the number three position when all was said and done. Their ad featuring model Matthew Terry was a huge hit across social media, with women in particular. CK didn’t hesitate to give the ladies of Twitter more eye candy to occupy their eyeballs while the crew in New Orleans worked to restore power and restart the action.

Using Twitter’s new Vine application, CK gave its followers six more seconds of fun with abdominals.

Takeaway: CK used the primest of prime times to start taking advantage of the newest enhancement to one of social media’s powerhouse platforms. Use your social media account to show off some “DVD extra” style content. It was a nice narrative continuation between their mainstream ad and their social presence. It also likely gave some Twitter users a glimpse at a new Twitter feature they may not have known existed.

The Top 5 – Sentiment Around Super Bowl Advertisers
Whether these advertisers took advantage of the blackout or not, here’s a look at sentiment around the top 5 Super Bowl brands (over the past 24 hours), here’s the results.

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The ExactTarget Blog Super Bowl Blackout: How to Use Social …

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