Almost everyone knows at least a few football super fans whose sole priority on game day is to stay glued to the TV, tracking yards, catching instant replays, and keeping a close eye on the ref’s calls. However, for most of us the Super Bowl is more than just a game. It’s a time to gather with friends and family over food, play games of your own, and build up excitement along the way. In other words, LII will be an experience and in order for advertisers to reach their target audiences, it’s critical that they successfully integrate themselves into and contribute towards the experience.
In last week’s first segment of #DigilantData’s Playbook for winning Super Bowl campaigns, we covered who’s planning to watch and what they’re looking for before kickoff. Today we’re sharing the next page out of our playbook where we reveal how these fans are taking brand-consumer engagement to a new level, forcing savvy digital marketers to implement game changing tactics to effectively target and convert these consumers.
After this past Sunday’s AFC & NFC championship games took place, fans are beginning to solidify their plans and the buzz around the second Patriots vs. Eagles faceoff is growing. These rivals were cheered on by the very same fans tuning in this year back in 2005, but brands and advertisers are faced with a very different digital ecosystem to navigate for this year’s rematch. At the advent of social media, the Super Bowl was hardly viewed as an opportunity for digital marketers to capitalize on. In fact, New England and Philadelphia’s fan bases didn’t even have many options to turn to if they wanted to make score predictions with friends or find their favorite influencer’s recap of the half-time show. Facebook was a platform exclusively for college students, YouTube was just a few weeks from launching, while all of the other major social networks that marketers and consumers enjoy using didn’t even exist.
This is a strong contrast to recent years where successful advertisements relied on diverse tactics to capture consumers’ attention across a variety of platforms. In 2017 over 90% of Facebook interactions took place on mobile and video content overwhelmingly yielded the highest engagement. Access to versatile native and video inventory, geo and cross-device targeting to reach fans, and a strong programmatic partner to implement an effective media buying plan are a few ways that brands can get the most from their digital ad dollars and celebrate their campaigns’ success on Super Bowl Monday.
California Avocado executed a phenomenal 2016 Super Bowl campaign, taking a few pages from this playbook, launching recipe videos across social media played in real-time right after food and beverage ads during the game, responding with a pairing of their avocados with the products on screen. Similarly, PepsiCo, whose sponsored the Super Bowl for five consecutive years, worked with Snapchat to create live content during the game and a hashtag #FanCountdown on Twitter to hype fans up while driving sales before the main event.
This year is going to be bigger than ever, so bring your A-Game with #DigilantData’s 2018 Super Bowl Infographic. Check out part 2 and download the full playbook below.
Our second infographic covers the following information:
- How do fans consume media?
- 84% TV
- 82% Smart Phone
- 11% Computer
- 9% Tablet
- 9% Game Console
- Where do they watch the game?
- 75% at home with TV & Mobile
- 7% Bars, Restaurants, & Pubs
- Which social platforms will users be most likely to turn to while watching the game?
- 49% Facebook
- 26% Instagram
- 24% Snapchat
- 22% Twitter
- 18% YouTube
- 30% Only focused on the game
Download the full Super Bowl Infographic Here! Don’t forget to share #DigilantData.
However, it’s not just on game day and during TV ad time that advertisers can cash in on the Super Bowl fanfare. As the 
