Regardless of what happens on the field on Sunday, one thing is certain: the answer to the question of “who won?” is less likely to be “Atlanta” or “New England” and more likely to be the brand or brands that most capture the water-cooler conversation the next day.
But while determining the winner of the actual game is straightforward, picking the advertiser victor is a much more subjective affair. Was “Puppy Monkey Baby” last year’s smash hit or a disturbing flop? How did Helen Mirren’s serious turn compare to the more traditional lighter fare?
Evaluating the success of a television spot — especially such an expensive one — is incredibly difficult.
At Crimson Hexagon, we like to cut through the subjectivity and use social media analytics to quantify the seemingly unquantifiable. We wanted to better understand the true ROI of an ad during the Big Game, so we decided to come up with a data-backed analysis to help you see what the advertising brands really got back from their massive investments.
How did we do it? We analyzed how much money the advertisers spent during the Big Game in 2016 and then measured that against the social conversation those ads generated.
In other words: How much social media conversation did brands get for $1 million of advertising spending.
Here are how last year’s advertisers fared:
As you can see, Doritos and T-Mobile received the most social buzz for every dollar spent. FitBit and WeatherTech, on the other hand, couldn’t quite split the uprights: they had the lowest social ROI for their advertising dollars.
In fact, when we use our social media ROI guide, we see that Doritos’ advertising performed 7x better than average, while WeatherTech came in 0.02x worse on average.
What separated the best from the worst? Comedy. Doritos’ “Ultrasound” ad appeared to strike a chord with viewers. Likewise, T-Mobile’s star-studded 30-second spots — one featuring Drake and another featuring Steve Harvey — both did well with social audiences.
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What will we see on Sunday? Your guess is as good as ours, but one thing is certain: the ads that most resonate with social media audiences will help you stretch advertising budget. Based on our analysis, brands that advertise during the Big Game should aim to generate at least 500 social posts for every million dollars they spend on advertising. Those that do will ensure that their ads aren’t just getting air time (for a very pretty penny) but are actually engaging consumers and generating buzz.
For more on the importance of analyzing your advertising campaigns, download our agency campaign lifecycle report here.
