This week will go down in history as one of those classic mid-winter weeks.
Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow, predicting six more weeks of winter (thanks A LOT groundhog). Patriots fans bawled like babies across this great nation, when their hometown pride and joy won it all at the SuperBowl. And a literary legend announced the sequel to her iconic book... 55 years later.
We looked at some of theses news stories, the battle of the advertising brands, and an overachieving (and let's face it, awesome) teacher/choreographer/dancer.
Are you ready for some footba... I mean data?!
Left Shark Bowl
The Patriots are this year's Super Bowl champs (but really, I think it's Left Shark). But what I want to know is who won the fierce battle of the brands off the field?
We were tracking mentions of brands that announced their Super Bowl campaigns in early January, including Anheuser-Busch, Avocados from Mexico, Coca-Cola, Doritos, McDonald's, and many more. Leading up to the big game, and during it, we tracked the mentions of these brands' commercials through this Brandwatch interactive data viz.
We analyzed top hashtags, total number of tweets mentioning brands and ads or commercials, and pulled insights to highlight which brand came out on top during the big game. On social that is.
From our data, we saw that Anheuser-Busch had the most mentions (197,800+) during the game, followed by the mood-changing, backlash-inducing Nationwide ad (161,000+).
Top Brands During the Game
Anheuser-Busch: 197,800+ mentions
Nationwide: 161,100+ mentions
McDonald's: 53,900+ mentions
Doritos: 53,000+ mentions
Coca-Cola: 42,900+ mentions
Skittles: 41,600+ mentions
Jurassic World: 40,300+ mentions
Microsoft: 40,100+ mentions
Pepsi: 32,900+ mentions
Nissan: 28,300+ mentions
Of note, this is graph represents a 10% sampling of Super Bowl commercial mentions
The trend this year that was most noticeable noticed from this years Brand Bowl, was that many strayed away from their normal approach of going for the laugh, and instead went for the jugular (aka the visceral, emotional reaction). But which brand got the most value for its Super Bowl ad money?
This year, companies paid a record $4.5 million for a 30-second spot during the game. Our team put together a breakdown of the total number of mentions they received and divided them by the amount they spent (note: the amount spent is estimated based on the forecast that 30 seconds cost $4.5 million).
This allowed us to find out how much each brand paid for online mentions:
So, the real "winner" isn't Budweiser's puppy or Nationwide's controversial "I couldn't grow up because I died" commercial (we excluded negative mentions from this chart, otherwise Nationwide would have topped the list because of the sheer volume of mentions).
The brand that got the most band for their buck was Skittles. They showed a world where apparently everyone arm-wrestles over the rainbow candy, leaving a population of huge-armed men, women, children, dogs, and of course babies.
No journalist covering the Super Bowl ads chose Skittles as their top choice, which shows how important social data like this truly is. To brands, our findings are one of the key methods for how they will measure the Super Bowl ad campaigns success. Social engagement and virality is a huge part of communications strategies in the business climate today, and it can be seen as the most important element for advertising and marketing.
The ad that didn't go over so well? Nationwide's "Make Safe Happen," or as people have been calling it, "Because I died." This particular commercial took audiences by surprise, with a slow-reveal of a morbid beyond-the-grave storytelling from the perspective of a child. Social went on high alert and this became one of the most highly-discussed ads on social, which is unusual for an insurance brand.
2 Kill 2 Mockingbirds
Earlier this week, it was announced that Harper Lee, iconic 88-year-old author of "To Kill A Mockingbird" would be releasing a second book. It will be a sequel, of sorts, to the mandatory reading-list book, and will feature an aging Atticus Finch and his daughter, Scout.
Once the news was announced, many people took to social media to discuss and dissect what this means for the literary world and the classic novel itself.
We saw over 67,000 mentions of the book since February 3, but the biggest reaction was generated from Ellen Degeneres made a joke about "the Hunger Games."
We used our minute-by-minute charting feature to see when the conversation about the sequel spiked on social channels, and why.
Of note, this graph represents GMT timezone
Now we only have to wait until July to read "Go Set a Watchman."
School House Rock
One song that we keep hearing around the office is Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars' "Uptown Funk." It's an earworm if ever there was one.
Scott Pankey, a teacher at A. Maceo Smith New Tech High School in Dallas, Texas, led his students in a dance routine to the song that hit the internets faster than you can say "Julian Edelman is my new boyfriend."
Their moves and routine would leave the kids from McKinley High's glee club jealous, Bruno Mars even said the video made him cry.
Since January 24, we have seen more than 5,000 mentions of the video and the video itself has more than ten million views.
We saw more than 1,300 mentions of people calling Pankey the "best" or "coolest" teacher ever.
Enrollment for his class will definitely skyrocket come September.
Next Week in Data
The GRAMMYs are this Sunday and we're tracking mentions of the show to see what the most popular performances are, who is the most RTed artist, and uncover the most memorable moment on social.
We also just released the "Twitter Happiness Report," which discovered that Denver and Los Angeles are home to the happiest Tweeters, while Boston, Louisville, and Fort Worth are least happy (at least on social). This study covers key insights about how Twitter users express emotions online, with results broken down by gender, life category, and conversation over different days of the week. Make sure to check it out!
Interested in learning more about social listening and data or have a question for Brandwatch? Visit us here or email me [email protected]!