It may seem hard to believe, but there was a time when people watched the Super Bowl and couldn’t share their thoughts about the game, the commercials or the halftime show instantaneously on Twitter. The speed at which the Twitter platform has been adopted and embraced by fans, and brands, has been remarkable. Part of the power is that Twitter gives everyone a relatively equal voice and the ability to share your opinion, no matter how foolish, insightful, funny or self-righteous.
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But this year we might start to see some cracks in the Twitter Super Bowl hegemony. Twitter is facing new, or renewed, competition from a variety of sources and has its own internal struggles. While the recent partnership between GoPro and Periscope signify a company that recognizes the future, if major brands see better opportunities to reach coveted demos on other platforms and spend their advertising dollars somewhere else, Twitter could be in trouble.
Mark Fidelman, Managing Director of Fanzeal, a sports-focused social platform connecting brands, athletes and fans, warns that Twitter has to make things easier for marketers: “Twitter needs to better integrate the live streaming capabilities of Periscope into the feed and allow rich conversations that are easy to follow. Twitter also needs to inform marketers on the best prospects for their products or services and make it easy to engage them. For example, if I were selling branded merchandise for the San Diego Chargers, I’d like to know who watches the most Charger’s Periscope videos, who engages with Charger’s content the most, and who is most positive about the team. Then I could develop content that most appeals to that audience and attempt to convert them to customers.”
So who is poised to steal mind- (and wallet-) share away from Twitter? Here’s a breakdown of some of the competition.
Snapchat
Launched in 2011, Snapchat has quickly been adopted by a young audience, one coveted by the type of brands that tend to advertise during the Super Bowl: Soda, snack food, candy and Summer blockbuster movies. Snapchat, as of last May, was recording 100 million active daily users and last month it was reported that users are viewing 7 billion videos every day. No wonder the NFL was eager to sign on with the platform.
As you can imagine, brands have taken notice of numbers like that. Snapchat tried to get in on the Super Bowl bandwagon last year, but stumbled a bit out of the gate. According to Digiday last year, Snapchat was out seeking a single big-name sponsor to spend $1.77 million on video ads in the app on game day. The platform wasn’t able to secure a sponsor for that package. Here’s their Super Bowl pitch deck to sponsors for 2015.
This year however is a different story. Pepsi, Amazon, Marriott, and Budweiser have already committed to being part of a Snapchat Live Story – signalling a strategic shift for the platform from last year’s effort to sign just one primary partner.
The success, or lack thereof, that brands see on Snapchat this year will be telling. If they score a touchdown we could see the floodgates open for them next year.
Just in time for the Big Game, Facebook rolled out Sports Stadium, a feature that lets users see stats and information about the game, as well as content from friends and experts. What isn’t as clear yet is how they will integrate brand content, unless it will start appearing under the Expert tab. That could get a bit sticky, but with the massive user-base that Facebook can tap into, they’re sure to pull some fans away from Twitter.
While it’s anecdotal, a quick search for #SuperBowl49 (last year’s game) recently turned up 98,055 tags. #SuperBowl50 already had been used 100,931 and the game hasn’t even been played yet.
Michael Litman, CEO of Burst Insights, a short-form video intelligence company sees a future in sports for Instagram, “Instagram become the ‘homepage’ for the XGames, with a ‘watch’ button appearing at the top of the app before a users own personal feed. it felt a very Snapchat Discover style experience so we will see the two platforms become increasingly similar in 2016 and fighting for the most minutes of your attention.”
Google / YouTube
Google’s video sharing service seems primed for Super Bowl action. Brands flood the site with their ads, plus behind-the-scenes, making-of and other content. Halftime show participants can promote their appearance, and music, and just about every media outlet can post Super Bowl-related video content as well. Aggregate all that under one massive Super Bowl channel and the platform becomes very enticing for advertisers. In fact, Google, which owns YouTube, just announced “real time ads” and has brought Wix on board for the Super Bowl. A recent “Think with Google” piece even suggests Three Ways to Engage Football Fans With YouTube.
It’s a smart move by Google and leverages one of their most powerful platforms. One can imagine they’ll be looking to tie this to search in the future.
Microsoft / Xbox
As a young audience becomes hardwired to eGames and gaming platforms like the Xbox, all the pieces are in place for Microsoft to make a play here. Microsoft is an official NFL partner, and while that hasn’t always worked out so well on the sidelines, it’s an amazing opportunity for a content play which both sides are already taking advantage of. Stats, highlights, Fantasy and EA’s Madden franchise all converge on the platform. It’s not a leap to see an incredibly immersive experience through the Xbox platform, allowing fans to watch the game and receive a wide-variety of additional, customizable content during the game, including streaming feeds from friends and others, not unlike the Twitter experience. With roughly 50 million Xbox Live members, a base is already in place.
Twitter’s reign hasn’t ended yet, and I’ll be live tweeting the game, but without some serious innovation and a demonstration that they can hold (and grow) their audience, the future could see the return of the Fail Whale.
Rick Liebling is an independent marketing professional based in the New York area, he’ll be live-tweeting Super Bowl 50 from @RickLiebling.