This year, the Super Bowl is all about the live experience. From Mars’ first live commercial for its Snickers brand to Hyundai shooting footage at Houston’s NRG Stadium in the midst of the Big Game, the introduction of live components has taken over the consumer experience.
This trend is, in part, thanks to the rise of social platforms that celebrate and encompass live social sharing tools, including Facebook Live and Instagram Stories Live.
Marketers also used these platforms to tease and/or announce their live game-day plans. In addition to its planned live commercial debut, Mars is streaming 36 hours of live content leading up to the Sunday game to boost awareness on Snickerslive.com and its brand Facebook page.
What else is fueling the live trend?
Influencer marketing campaigns around the Big Game
Marketers are leveraging influencers to continue the connection with their brands after game day plays out. This allows marketers to broaden a campaign’s reach in real-time without breaking their budgets.
According to Nielsen, the 2016 National Football League season averaged 16.7 million viewers per game, down 7 percent from the 2015 season, but the network is still pricing 30-second TV spots at around $5 million.
Super Bowl 50 between the Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers garnered a viewership of 111.9 million, bringing the cost per view to around $0.04. With the same budget, you can get just as many (if not more) views with influencer content across all platforms.
Not only can a brand get the same cost per view with online influencer content, the influencers’ audiences are more captivated and trusting of the content they are watching. Leveraging digital platforms through influencers allows you to piggyback on the Super Bowl while also having the ability to measure the return on investment with click and conversion rates.
Creating content with a variety of influencers with a proven history of performance guarantees hitting predetermined key performance indicators for consistency will open the gate to scalability.
Lessons to be learned
If the Super Bowl has passed you by once again this year, there are still lessons to take away from the rise of live.
First, use live social platforms for everyday announcements. It’s not just about the one-time TV spot today. To get the best impact for your brand campaign, consider a holistic approach that incorporates live social teasers before a TV spot to create more of an impact. Wix took this approach. The company’s Super Bowl spot was teased and released before game day.
Then leverage the channels where your target audience lives and where they are actually interested in watching branded content. This will help to reach and engage your audience.
Overall, whether it is a big seasonal event or an ongoing campaign, consider encompassing live content leveraging a variety of channels to score big time.
