Super Bowl LIII: Social Media Sponsorship Results

The highly anticipated Super Bowl LIII ended with the New England Patriots taking home their third title within the past five years by defeating the Los Angeles Rams. Despite the record-setting low number of points collectively scored during the game, brands and sponsors had no problem capturing the consumer’s attention through various channels and advertisements.

Earned media value : By brand

Brands such as Pepsi with their More Than OK campaign, NFL with the 100 Years Celebration Gala featuring many of the top football players, and Hyundai’s The Elevator commercial won big on television. However, it was brands such as Bose and their “Bose Cam” video featuring the New England Patriots in the locker room after the big game, the time lapse of Mercedes-Benz stadium and Bud Light’s reference to HBO’s Game of Thrones, that were clear winners for social media sponsorship and earned media value leading up to and during the Super Bowl.

Bose

Among the top winners for social media value driven, Bose was at the forefront, earning over $222k in media value — over 1.5x the value earned by second-placed Mercedes-Benz. 74% of this total value was driven by the two competing teams, with the New England Patriots driving the majority (93%) of the value over the Los Angeles Rams. The Patriots drove $152k to Bose through 8 posts on Twitter and 3 posts each on Facebook & Instagram. The second highest value driver for Bose, was through self-promoted posts on its owned social media accounts. Bose earned a media value of $23k through promoted posts on its owned social media channels — however, this was only 10% of the total value the brand earned during the Super Bowl. By choosing the right sponsored properties who promote the sponsor brand well on their social channels, a brand sponsor can earn a higher media value than self- promoted posts on its own social media platforms.  

Mercedes- Benz

German automobile manufacturer Mercedes Benz earned the second highest media value of $147k during the Super Bowl. Fans and media drove the majority of the value for Mercedes-Benz, accounting for 65% of the total $147k value driven for the brand. The NFL’s social media post featuring a timelapse of the Mercedes-Benz stadium that hosted the Super Bowl LIII, was the second major value driver, accounting for 26% of the total earned media value for Benz.

Bud Light

Bud Light was another memorable brand during the Super Bowl. The brand’s commercial about its special delivery of corn syrup to competitors Coors Light and Miller Lite, continues to make waves even today. Their strategy was well-received by fans on social media, driving an earned media value of $114k for Bud Light.

Earned media value : By athletes

Tom Brady continues to break records, both on and off the field. The 6x Super Bowl champion’s single facebook post celebrating the championship win had over 4.9M interactions. In fact, his top two most engaged posts garnered 6.4M total interactions, a clear landslide over teammate Julian Edelman, who had only 935k total interactions from his post on Facebook about a parody of Growing Pains.

It is clear that the New England Patriots duo of Brady and Edelman had more social media engagements than any of the Los Angeles Rams athletes. Brady and Edelman collectively had 11M total engagements from a total of 12 Facebook and Instagram posts. The top two posts from these Patriots generated 38x more interactions than posts by Todd Gurley, the athlete with the most interactions from Los Angeles Rams.

Interestingly enough, although Todd Gurley’s most popular post that featured Nike had only 153k social media engagements, it was his promoted post about American Airlines that earned the highest value for the brand among all other athletes and their sponsors. His Instagram post about American Airlines earned a media value of over $13k.

In fact, Brady and Edelman were not the highest value earners for their respective brands, even though they had the most interactions out of any athlete from the Super Bowl. Neither one of the two Patriots stars generated earned media value for their sponsors, primarily due to not tagging their brand sponsors in their social media posts. From the New England Patriots, Stephon Gilmore with his promotion of Nike and Bose brought in the highest value for brands among his teammates at just over $11k, followed by Devin McCourty’s post about Bose, that drove an earned media value of $4k for the brand.

Earned media value : By social media platforms

Brands earned the most value through Instagram, which generated over $287k (39%) out of the total $728k advertising value among the Super Bowl brands. Facebook was the second highest value driver for brands, bringing in a media value of over $233k (32% of the total value).

Earned media value : By entity

Much like the different social media channels, the sources that posted about Super Bowl brands were also varied. The most prominent were Media/Fans, who drove an earned media value of nearly $306k for all brands across all social media channels. With $266k in earned media value, teams were the next highest value drivers for sponsored brands across social media channels.

However, when considering the average value per follower, contending teams Patriots and Rams brought in the most value for their associated brands per post. On average, a post by teams brought in a media value of $6k, followed by the NFL with an average value of $5k per post for sponsor brands. Although media/fans drove the highest overall value to brands, with over 27k social media posts, the average value per post was only $29 for any brand.

The right metrics and insights can help sponsor brands understand which of their sponsored properties are most effective and drive higher ROI. Sponsor brands can gain this competitive advantage by leveraging the Hookit platform to make effective sponsorship decisions and strategy.