Pepsi Becomes a Repeat MVP in Twitter's 2021 Brand Bowl

PepsiCo's flagship soft drink brand sat out this year’s Super Bowl, but that didn’t stop Pepsi from taking home top honors for the second year in a row in Twitter’s fourth annual Brand Bowl, recognizing the companies that drive the most discussion on its platform during the Big Game. Pepsi scored the MVP award, given to the brand that drove the most overall conversation among Super Bowl advertisers, for its sponsorship of the halftime show and its use of Twitter before, during and after The Weeknd’s performance. The beverage giant continued its momentum from last year, when it was also awarded the MVP for leveraging its sponsorship of the halftime show by prompting fans to tweet their predictions about the performances by Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, and awarding prizes to those with the best guesses. Twitter U.S. research analyst Makenna Bigelow, senior manager of scaled marketing Liz Lenahan and content and social strategy lead E.J. Samson shared their thoughts on the 2021 Brand Bowl winners in all six categories, writing in their introduction, “If no one tweets about your ad, was it really a success?” MVP As mentioned above, Pepsi augmented its sponsorship of the halftime show with elements on Twitter such as giving fans the chance to win prizes and sharing behind-the-scenes content. https://twitter.com/pepsi/status/1358653198282678277 Bigelow, Lenahan and Samson wrote, “People on Twitter couldn’t stop talking about Pepsi and The Weeknd’s epic performance (along with all the memes).” No-TV Touchdown Like Pepsi, Budweiser did not run a Super Bowl spot for the first time in nearly four decades, although other brands in the Anheuser-Busch portfolio were well represented. Budweiser earned the No-TV Touchdown award, presented to the brand without a national TV spot that drove the most overall conversation on the platform, for its #EyesOnTheClydes sweepstakes, which gave fans the chance to win a retro fridge stocked with Bud. https://twitter.com/budweiserusa/status/1358562908653817856 Last year’s #Interception award, equivalent to this year’s No-TV Touchdown award, went to Tums for its #Tumsworthy sweepstakes. Retweet Rusher T-Mobile tallied the most retweets on a single tweet from a Super Bowl advertiser’s brand handle. The wireless carrier encouraged Twitter users to retweet its ad—a humorous, fictional recap of how Adam Levine set up real-life couple Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani, with some “assistance” from a poor connection during a video call—for the chance to win a Samsung Galaxy S21 5G-enabled smartphone. https://twitter.com/TMobile/status/1358582919036506115 Last year’s winner of what was then called the #Quarterback award was Doritos, for its #CoolRanchDance showdown between Lil Nas X and Sam Elliott. (re)Play of the Game Disney+ was recognized as the Big Game advertiser that drew the most engagements on a single video tweet from its handle. The streaming service teased its new Marvel series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with a short trailer during its Super Bowl spot, then released the full-length version on Twitter. https://twitter.com/disneyplus/status/1358564712238051328 Audible The Audible award, which goes to the brand that best adjusted to real-time events as they unfolded, went to online job listings board Indeed. During the Big Game on Sunday night, Indeed tweeted job opportunities from brands that were advertising using the #NowHiring hashtag, with an eye toward the ongoing unemployment crisis in the U.S. https://twitter.com/indeed/status/1358563069882957826 Hyundai received last year’s award, the #12thPlayer, for its use of a Boston accent in its #smaht campaign—featuring Boston natives Rachel Dratch, Chris Evans and John Krasinski—which Twitter users eventually shifted to #smahtpahk. Most Creative Play The Most Creative Play award recognizes the brand that best uses Twitter to creatively break through beyond promoted tweets and video. This year’s winner was Verizon, which followed up its Fortnite spot starring an animated avatar of Samuel L. Jackson with the Verizon Big Concert for Small Business, an afterparty featuring performances from artists including Miley Cyrus and Alicia Keys. https://twitter.com/Verizon/status/1358626610946203648 The National Football League won the #Creativity award last year for teaming up with Twitter to print tweets from fans on the confetti that rained down on Hard Rock Stadium at the end of the game. Twitter and the NFL rekindled that initiative for this year’s Super Bowl, including thank-you messages to frontline workers.