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Three brands to watch ahead of the Super Bowl


Jodie Cormack - 31st January 2017 - 0 comments

The eye-watering amounts that brands spend on advertising slots during the Super Bowl are now well known, but they are also increasingly looking to back up this spend by building momentum on social media in the run-up to the big event. Combined with a TV spot, a successful supporting campaign on social can take a brand’s reach into the stratosphere, so it follows that brands have already been ramping up the excitement for a few weeks now. Here are three brands to keep an eye on in the week leading up to the game.

Pepsi 

As one of the lead sponsors of the Super Bowl and the main sponsor of the halftime show, Pepsi has a large presence at the event. This year, in anticipation of Lady Gaga’s halftime performance, Pepsi has launched a #FanCountdown social media campaign to count down the days until Mother Monster’s performance. Fans are encouraged to make videos lip synching and dancing to a Lady Gaga song, with the potential of a retweet from Pepsi. The brand has also helped raise the hype by adding in occasional behind-the-scenes videos.

Beyond engaging Lady Gaga fans, Pepsi has also enlisted American football players from non-playoff teams in a series of videos. Some feature the players festively counting down until the big day, while others are funny videos such as Joe Flacco detailing how to save a party from party poopers.

As the Super Bowl draws closer, expect an increase in activity from Pepsi. Although they have already put out a fair amount of content, there will likely be more countdown videos from players and fans made with increasing excitement and enthusiasm, and increasingly frequent social media blasts.

https://twitter.com/pepsi/status/823246391736733696

Skittles

As one of the brands who have debuted their Super Bowl ad early, there’s little mystery surrounding Skittles’ presence on game day. But the brand has been highly active on social media. One of their main pushes has been about superstitions. They recently tweeted a GIF that randomly generates game-day superstitions, and have driven the point home with lots of fan interaction.

Skittles has been reaching out to fans of all NFL teams and responding to tweets about superstitions—lucky clothing in particular. The brand hasn’t encouraged this with any specific campaign, but is seeking out fans who tweet with either the word “lucky” or “superstition” to tweet a response, usually involving Skittles. They’ve also been sending boxes of Skittles to football players and publicising their responses. All in all, a clever, multi-layered activity.

Snickers 

Snickers grabbed one of the first big headlines a few days ago by announcing that they would be airing the first live Super Bowl ad. This live ad will be preceded by a 36 hour live stream from the set—found at SnickersLive.com—and will feature Adam Driver, recent star of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

But that hasn’t been Snickers’ main focus on social media. Besides promotion of their ongoing campaign—“You’re not you when you’re hungry #EatASNICKERS”—Snickers has been heavily promoting the Candy Bowl, a joint campaign with Skittles that offers a chance to win Super Bowl tickets by voting in the event.

The Candy Bowl is a competition to crown the more popular candy, and Snickers is making a big push. As the current leader of the race, Snickers has tweeted many graphics updating fans on the race. They’re also engaging with the Skittles Twitter, taunting and responding to them. With all their efforts, Snickers will undoubtably be fun to watch come game day.

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