February, for many, is recognized as the month of love, but for others, it is recognized as the finale of this year’s NFL Football season. Every year we wait with high hopes for the spectacular finale that brings with it, the amazing Half Times Shows and commercials from famous brands. If I must be frank, I and the majority of non-NFL fans don’t keep up with the season, but I can assure you we NEVER miss the Sunday Super Bowl. I wait all year just to see how they can surpass last year’s performance and the thing is, THEY ALWAYS DO BETTER.
It’s astonishing to see how so many brands scramble to find viable and creative ways to capture consumers attention now a days. In the past, advertisers were confident in knowing that the commercials on tv would be perceived by a large portion of their audience. That security has decreased in the past years, as consumers like me, are using mobile devices and other electronic devices to watch or keep up with the event. After several studies, experts have concluded that today’s typical tv viewers are multi-taskers, that switch between their smartphone, tablet, laptop and tv as many as 27 times per hour. Therefore, brands have to stop fighting with technology and team up with it, in orther to explore new ways of connecting with consumers through strategic social media moves that will help them shine above all the marketing noise.
Twitter has become one consumer favorite social media to talk about hot topics and spectacles, like the Super Bowl, Oscars and Grammys. The mass congregation of users accessing and engaging with the medium has opened a new door in the marketing world for brands. The NFL has seen this behavior and has taken advantage of it by teaming with Twitter to create this year’s most creative campaign in the Super Bowl. They offered the fans the opportunity to engage with their favorite players and teams via tweets printed as confetti, that rained down onto the winning team at the end of the game.
The brand intended on showcasing personal stories told by fans and NLF players on the printed-out tweets. In a way of giving the consumer an important role in the event, by featuring real-time personal messages on one of the world’s most important sports event. This strategy was designed to target fans, especially older fans that have watched their teams for years, to have the chance to be seen and be heard. By doing this the brand hoped to create an emotional attachment of a positive and special memory every time fans and players think or talk about the NFL. Fans were stoked to see their tweets been memorialized and people even started selling bundles on eBay of confetti tweets, which were sold old out in minutes. By memorializing these moments and seeing that people want to sell and buy tweets meant the success of a marketing campaign.
The NFL is a great example of a brand that understands and stresses the importance of not only being seen but heard, urging brands to use the different features of each social media channels to create consumer engagements that are impactful, memorable and creative.
Zafar, M. (n.d.). R2integrated. Retrieved from How the NFL is Using Twitter to Increase Fan Engagement: https://www.r2integrated.com/r2insights/how-the-nfl-is-using-twitter-to-increase-fan-engagement
