Frank’s RedHot Drove the Most Twitter Conversations Among Brands Without a Super Bowl Ad

Thanks to its #FranksSweepstakes stunt from agency of record Grey New York, Twitter’s #BrandBowl53 gave Frank’s RedHot the “interception award” for driving the highest percent of brand conversations during the Super Bowl without an in-game spot.

Instead of spending $5 million on a Super Bowl spot, Frank’s RedHot ran a contest on Twitter during the game that put a playful twist on its “I put that shit on everything” tagline by asking participants to “put that emoji on everything,” in this case meaning tweet the cayenne pepper emoji (for Frank’s) during ads along with the emoji that corresponded to the category of that ad for a chance to win prizes.

“Frank’s RedHot playfully engaged brands on Twitter, driving the highest percentage of brand conversation among brands that did not have a national TV spot during game day,” said Ryan Oliver, senior director of brand strategy at Twitter for the U.S. and Canada. “They proved that you can literally put that [shit] on everything, and even better, win the items that were being advertised on TV by using a few simple emojis and #FranksSweepstakes directly through Twitter, truly bringing the ads to life for viewers in a unique way.”

Frank’s RedHot also shouted out other brands’ Super Bowl spots as they aired, including Olay’s #KillerSkin starring Sarah Michelle Gellar (the brand tweeted: “We can be scary too”), Mint Mobile’s disgusting “chunky-style milk” ad (“Some things just aren’t meant for drinking”) and Doritos’ spot in which Chance the Rapper collaborated with the Backstreet Boys (“hot recognizes hot,” to which Doritos responded).

The results show the stunt paid off.

According to Grey New York, 40 brands engaged with Frank’s RedHot’s contest, which earned 3.5 million impressions. Fifty-four thousand people used the #FranksSweepstakes hashtag, and the brand, which awarded 20 prizes, saw its followers increase by 9.5 percent. Michael Bublé even liked one of the tweets.

The stunt further proved that there are other ways to participate in the biggest advertising night of the year without dishing out $5 million or more.

“Twitter and social media at large have democratized a brand’s ability to connect with its fans and the other brands during the biggest cultural moment of the year,” said Kenny Gold, senior vice president, director of social media at Grey.

Alia Kemet, creative and digital strategic director for Frank’s RedHot, said the company couldn’t have been “more pleased with the engagement from fans and brands.”

“For years, Frank’s has been known as the brand that puts that shit on everything, and we could think of no better way to celebrate game day than putting Frank’s RedHot on almost every Super Bowl brand … even the ones you wouldn’t expect,” said Jeff Anderson, executive creative director at Grey.