Twitter’s #BrandBowl 54: Pepsi’s Interactive Tie-in With Halftime Show Wins #MVP

Pepsi’s interactive experience tied to its sponsorship of the Super Bowl LIV Halftime Show earned the beverage brand Twitter's #MVP award in #BrandBowl 54. This year marked the third #BrandBowl, which is Twitter’s way of recognizing brands that drive discussion on its platform during the Big Game. #BrandBowl 54 included eight categories: Four returning quantitative categories selected based on Twitter data exclusively provided by customer experience management platform Sprinklr, and four new qualitative categories that were judged by the Twitter Next brand strategy team. The four quantitative categories were #MVP, #FanFavorite, #Interception and #Quarterback, and the four qualitative categories were #Hashtag, #Connect, #12thPlayer and #Creativity. The #MVP went to Pepsi, which earned the highest percentage of all brand tweets during Super Bowl LIV. Twitter Next senior director Ryan Oliver said in a blog post that Pepsi was able to leverage its sponsorship of the halftime show by encouraging fans to tweet their predictions of how the performances by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira would play out, and awarding prizes to those with the best guesses. Oliver added that the campaign also provided a way for the beverage giant to promote its Pepsi Zero Sugar offering. Planters won #MVP in 2019 for its #CrunchTimeGiveaway contest and sharing an extended cut of its ad starring Mr. Peanut, with cameos by Charlie Sheen and Alex Rodriguez. [kickout id="1"] Doritos was the winner of the #Quarterback award, for the most retweets on a single tweet from a brand’s handle, despite falling short of the 1 million that were required to see Billy Ray Cyrus dance. Oliver said people loved the #CoolRanchDance showdown between Lil Nas X and Sam Elliott, which tallied nearly 3,000 retweets. [kickout id="2"] The #FanFavorite award, for the brand that drove the highest overall positivity, went to Google for what Elliott called the “biggest tearjerker” of the night. Oliver said the story of the grandfather of a Google employee missing his wife drew the most positive sentiment of any Big Game campaign, and the spot illustrated how easy Google is to use. [kickout id="3"] The #TumsworthySweepstakes from Tums won the #Interception award, which goes to the brand that drove the most conversation despite not having a national Super Bowl spot. Tums was the fourth-most mentioned brand on Twitter Sunday night with over 72,000; Oliver also credited the GlaxoSmithKline brand for its use of the blue circle emoji to simulate an antacid tablet. [kickout id="4"] [kickout id="5"] The New England Patriots weren’t part of the Big Game this year, but Hyundai’s use of the Boston accent in its #smaht campaign led to Twitter’s #12thPlayer award going to the automaker for adjusting to real-time events as they unfolded. Twitter users shifted from #smaht to #smahtpahk, the phrase used by the ad's stars, Boston natives John Krasinski, Chris Evans and Rachel Dratch, and Hyundai stayed true to the Boston theme by turning its account over to comedians Robert Kelly and Tony Viveiros, who also hail from the city. [kickout id="6"] The #Connect award, for the brand with the campaign most tied to the Big Game, went to Pantone, which took advantage of the fact that red was the primary color of both participating teams to push color samples, which are central to its interactions with customers. Oliver said in an interview last week that he expected to see a lot of “advertising-based advertising,” or brands keying in on what other brands are doing with their television spots, and then taking to Twitter to play off that, and he added in his blog post that Pantone was able to do just that. [kickout id="7"] Olay was presented with the #Hashtag award, for the brand that creates a hashtag that resonated with the platform's users while reflecting its brand messaging at the same time. Oliver said #MakeSpaceForWomen was connected to both its Big Game ad—which featured female stars (and a real astronaut) traveling to space—as well as its positive connotation, and it made its way into the top U.S. trends on Twitter during the game. The campaign’s charitable tie-in with Girls Who Code also caused people to organically support the initiative, including soccer legend Brandi Chastain. [kickout id="8"] Finally, the National Football League won for #Creativity, marking the brand that best uses Twitter's resource and creative hacks, rather than simply relying on promoted tweets and video. The league teamed up with Twitter to print tweets from fans on the confetti that rained down on Hard Rock Stadium at the end of the game. Some of the players left snow angels in the tweet confetti, which became a hot souvenir at the event. [kickout id="9"] [kickout id="10"]