What if the winner of the 2013 Super Bowl was Social Media?

Yesterday’s Super Bowl was an exciting game: the Ravens beat the 49ers by a mere 3 points, there was a 15-minute power outage, and Beyoncé proved all the doubters wrong by delivering an authentic halftime show. And yet, in my opinion, the biggest game-changer (pun intended) was the role social media played in Super Bowl advertising. Throughout my career in communications, the Super Bowl has remained one of our industry’s global bellwethers, so the full-on integration of social media in this year’s ads is a big deal. Below I’ve ranked the 3 biggest winners of the 2013 Super Bowl and added one special mention.
And the first place goes to Twitter


Oreo could have just stopped at their hilarious ad (see below), but they went the extra mile: when the Super Dome’s power went out for 15 minutes, the sandwich cookie brand tweeted the above photo proclaiming “You can still dunk in the dark.” This tweet was retweeted some 12,000 times during the game—this was perhaps the most effective free ad at the Super Bowl!




I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Twitter campaign for Wheat Thins (along with Oreo, Wheat Thins is part of the Mondelez group) that was done by BEING New York. In addition to the hilarious conceit of a Yeti/obnoxious neighbor night-ambush was the brand’s Twitter presence. The spot didn't air during the Super Bowl, but Wheat Thins was able to take advantage of the importance of Super Bowl snacks, by creating a contest allowing San Franciscans to tweet for a free Wheat Thins delivery, providing cold comfort for a sports loss... Second place goes to YouTube I was impressed by Dodge Ram’s “Farmer” ad—a very moving 2-minute long tribute to American farmers and “the farmers in all of us”. The text of the ad is actually from a speech made by the famous American radio announcer Paul Harvey. Entitled “So God made a farmer,” Harvey gave this speech at Future Farmers of America convention in 1978. In 2011, farms.com adapted this speech into the video below, which at the time garnered 1 million YouTube hits. Farm.com’s video and Ram’s spot differ only in the quality of the images selected. Could YouTube be the new incubator for brand creativity? Third place goes to Facebook As I mentioned earlier, Coca Cola’s #CokeChase operation, was an excellent example of immersive marketing, allowing for varying degrees of detail and complexity in telling the story of the #CokeChase through a dedicated Facebook page. After much participation, the winning team was the Showgirls who as we see below enjoy their Coke thanks to help from fans around the world who helped make the story happen.