There are new ways this year to enjoy and interact with the Super Bowl and a multimillion-dollar contest among advertisers to generate buzz on social media.
Charles Palmer, an associate professor of interactive media at Harrisburg University, points out a variety of ways viewers’ interactions will be tracked and new ways for viewers to talk about the game.
“Later on, I envision those will then be used as selling points for advertisers that are moving from the traditional broadcast to more of an online market,” said Palmer.
HootSuite will track Super Bowl mentions, including on what outlet they occur (e.g. Facebook vs. Twitter). According to Twitter, last year there 24.1 million tweets featuring the #SB47 hashtag.
Palmer said, “Teens and your high school kids are moving from Facebook to other platforms. How much pull does Facebook have this year versus last year? And, how much growth are we seeing in some of these other tools?”
That information could prove valuable for companies seeking to buy new and emerging social media platforms, Palmer said.
New this year, iPhone users can download the app “Not Buying It.” It’s based on the #NotBuyingIt hashtag, which people can use to call out advertisers they view as promoting sexist images.
“Advertisers look at that and say, oh wait a minute,” said Palmer.
The Super Bowl Host Committee has volunteers working 18 hours a day responding to tweets feature the #SBQuestions hashtag.
“We wanted to make sure we established a base head where people could listen to messages, listen to traffic, and then be a reliable source for answering it,” said Al Kelly, the committee’s CEO.
The major pizza retailers have free apps which you can use to place your order ahead of Sunday.
The NFL and Fox Sports will stream the game live to users who download their apps. However, out of a concern about bandwidth, the NFL is not allowing people at the Super Bowl to stream the game live in the stadium.
A 30-second spot this year is selling for about $4 million. According to Kantar Media, the Super Bowl generated more than $1.85 billion in ad sales from 2003-2012.
Palmer says he expects about 80 percent of ads this year to feature a hashtag, encouraging viewers to interact with the brand or product and other viewers.
However, Palmer said what’s unclear is to what extent generating all this buzz actually drives sales.
He said, “It’s growing and growing and growing in engagement. But, what we don’t know is how often does that turn into someone actually making a purchase.”