While the great mass of digital commentators seem to have gravitated to simply reviewing Super Bowl ads this year (more on this later this week), we took a different tack, posting and asking for comments on advertisers web, social and mobile tie-ins. (We used hashtags #digitalbowl, #socialbowl and #mobilebowl.) We got a few contributors but ended up doing most of the posting ourselves... hope to build on it next year!
One thing we noted was Twitter participation among advertisers. We found four brands actively participating: HR Block, Sobe, Pepsi and E-Trade.
@hrblock helped us find the HR Block mobile site when we struggled with it, and offered to find out more information about device re-directs when one of our phones didn't pick up their site correctly. (Would have been better if hrblock actually followed through.
@sobeworld jumped in when we wondered where to get the 3D glasses, since the link referenced on their promo page didn't exist on the homepage it pointed to. Sobeworld pointed out that the promo had just ended, which we pointed out was probably accurate but possibly out of touch with the expectations of consumers sitting around gettting ready to watch the game. Bowled over by our impressive display of logic, sobeworld responded "noted"
What got a little weird was when sobeworld then switched into hungry lizard mode for the game - somewhat of a disconnect in voice and tone. When brands have a character tweeting, should they have a separate identity to just do basic customer service stuff? OR do the service stuff in the personality of the character... either way, but mix and match probably not the best approach.
@etradebaby kept up the tone of the campaign with a running commentary on the game and tweeted out a link to some baby outtakes, too. Points for consistency. The baby caught onto the #superbowlads hashtag about halfway through the game. Nice catchup, but shouldn't you have known - even at your age?
@pepsuber also kept up the tone with inane tweets that featured a lot of "pepsi pepsi pepsi" messaging.
The verdict: No clear winners. Good to see brands augmenting the ad conversation with Twitter, but lots of inconsistency and lack of ability for the tweeters to add value (beyond the E-Trade video extras) make this seem like exploratory efforts, not full-blown campaign elements.
Did we miss anyone? Let us know at #socialbowl.com
