Cars, Hashtags and Celebrities– What the Super Bowl is REALLY about

If you thought that the Super Bowl was all about football, you would be only partially right. Apart from the Seahawks vs. Broncos battle on the field, viewers will also be witness to the ‘Jaguar v. Audi v. Toyota v. Hyundai v. Chevrolet v. Ford v. Chrysler v. Volkswagen v. Kia’ free-for-all off the field.

This year more brands than ever before are using their social media platforms to release either teasers or full commercials before the spots air on Sunday, including almost all of the auto brands taking part. Reportedly the highest spender this year, the Automobile industry is leaving no stone unturned in their quest for Super Bowl domination.
Unmetric takes a look at those automobile brands that have released some, if not all of their commercials prior to the live airing at the Super Bowl.

Jaguar
Jaguar brings out the big guns from Britain for its first ever Super Bowl spot, combining the power of Ben Kingsley, Mark Strong and Tom Hiddleston in their Tom Hooper directed “British Villains” spot.

The car brand uses a catchy hashtag #itsgoodtobebad in their commercial, as well as on Facebook and Twitter – where it is receiving astounding engagement.

Toyota
Toyota has enlisted the help of former NFL player turned movie star Terry Crews, and the Muppets to help sell its Highlander model. The entertaining spot also has a catchy song that doubles as a hashtag – #NoRoomForBoring which is engaging well on Twitter, with users tweeting it more than 600 times already.

Hyundai
The Big Bang Theory makes its way into the Super Bowl again with star Johnny Galecki, and comedian Richard Lewis starring in Hyundai’s “Nice” commercial for their Elantra model. The #nicehashtag has been used by the brand in 11 posts on Facebook where it has received an engagement score of 324, and 20 times on Twitter where its has garnered an engagement score isof 149.

Their other commercial “Dad’s Sixth Sense” also has the foundation of a popular hashtag, however this has not been utilised. Instead the hashtag promoted for the spot refers to the car itself- #NextGenesis or #NextGen. The commercial is an affectionate look at the lengths that dads go to in order to keep their children from harm, and is sure to resonate with a signficant part of the audience on Sunday. However, the brand seems to be pushing their #nicehashtag advert more aggressively.

Chevrolet
Chevrolet gives its engineers “Wings” in their Super Bowl commercial, although the teaser they posted a week before that, promised a misleading mix of Carmen Electra, babies, groin hits and puppies. While Wings may not have the staying power of their 2013 “The Force”, it has already received 3.5 million views on YouTube and is sure to be one of the favorites at the end of the game.

Kia
Laurence Fishburne as Morpheus stars in Kia’s amazing game day advert – “Truth” that will send shivers down the spines of any Matrix fan. While the brand has not used a hashtag, it has used both Facebook and Twitter to announce the release of the spot, and the relevant posts have earned our highest engagement score of 1,000 on both platforms.

Audi
Audi is one of the brands bringing two popular trends of this Super Bowl together – animals and hashtags. Their #StayUncompromised commercial introduces us to the adorable/horrifying “Doberhuahua” and if you look closely, you’ll find a third trend from this Super Bowl – country superstar Sarah McLachlan making a cameo celebrity appearance. While they haven’t promoted the commercial strongly on Facebook and Twitter, the full commercial has already received almost 5 million views on YouTube alone, with the three teaser ads released prior to that also receiving a fair amount of views.

Chevrolet
The other brand to use both animals and a memorable hashtag is Chevrolet’s “#SilveradoStrong”. Racking up more than 4 million views already, the commercial is sure to be a big hit this weekend and gain a far greater number of views post the Super Bowl. I mean, who can resist the charm of this very eligible bachelor?

The brand is aggressively using their #SilveradoStrong hashtag, not exclusively to promote this commercial but in a larger #Silverado conversation on Twitter and Facebook in relation to their Silverado truck. This means that they have racked up impressive engagement across platforms, with the hashtag getting a competitive engagement score of 416 on Twitter.

CarMax
While technically not an ‘automobile’ brand, CarMax joins the game(s), releasing two versions of the same commercial – The #SlowClap for the Super Bowl, and the #SlowBark for the Puppy Bowl that also airs on Super Bowl Sunday, both receiving amazing engagement across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
In fact the post with their highest engagement score of 804 on Facebook is the release of #SlowBark – confirming what we already knew – no matter how awesome your product is, animals make it even better.

Ford
Ford is a late entry, releasing their “Nearly Double” Big Game Preview on the 29th of January, starring James Franco and promising a commercial like no other, set to air on game day. They are also using the #nearlydouble hashtag across Twitter and Facebook in order to promote buzz around the final release.

Chrysler
Chrysler is the only auto brand that has not released any content in the lead up to the Super Bowl, however reports suggest that Bob Dylan has a part in their final spot.
On the whole, auto brands seemed to use Facebook primarily to announce their Super Bowl commercials, Twitter to amplify the reach of the commercials and YouTube to launch either teasers or the full length commercials. We’ve taken a look at the number of views that auto brands have gained from their most popular Super Bowl related video, in the chart below.

In order to make the most of their investment, it’s important that these brands continue to leverage these commercials across Facebook and Twitter post the big game. While YouTube is the perfect place to premier their commercials, it will be interesting to see which brands make the effort of following up and ensuring audience retention once the initial hype of the Super Bowl dies down.

Methodology
All data has been compiled and analyzed from the Unmetric platform which tracks dozens of metrics to enable brands to benchmark themselves against competitors and their industry sector for the time period of January 13th, 2014 to January 30th, 2014. Gain access to all this data by claiming a free 6 day trial.

This article was originally published on Social Media Today.