Twitter Announces the Winners of its ‘Brand Bowl’ Super Bowl Campaign Awards

With Super Bowl LVI now in the books, it’s time to look at the other big winners of the day – the brands whose Super Bowl ads stood out and gained the most attention during the event.

Celebrating the best in Super Bowl ads, Twitter has announced the winners of its fifth Brand Bowl, including the brands that generated the most retweets, the most creative use of tweets, the best real-time campaign adjustments and more.

Here’s a look at this year’s award winners, and tweets they used to gain traction during Super Bowl LVI.

First off, the MVP, being the brand that drove the most overall discussion among big game advertisers. For the fourth time, Pepsi’s sponsorship of the halftime show gave it a leg up, which saw it take out the top award once again.

The halftime celebration, which included an array of hip hop legends, generated a heap of hype, and that discussion helped propel Pepsi’s brand mentions above all others during the game.

Of course, being a chief sponsor is clearly an advantage here, and as I’ve noted previously, maybe Twitter needs to review its criteria of this award, or take Pepsi out of the running, maybe naming the award in the company’s honor instead. But as it stands, Pepsi is once again the big winner in terms of brand mentions, and driving discussion in the app.

Meanwhile, the brand that saw the most retweets on a Super Bowl campaign tweet was FTX, with this Larry David-led take on crypto investing.

That tweet’s seen 172k retweets thus far. It probably helps that the campaign also includes a Bitcoin giveaway for retweets, which, if anything, shows that giveaways are effective in driving more engagement.

In terms of video tweets specifically, Marvel’s new preview of its upcoming Doctor Strange movie saw the most engagements on a single video tweet.

It’s tough to take any real campaign or creative insight from that one, as the only real lesson you could take away would be ‘market a Marvel film’. Outside of that, there’s not a heap to glean from this, but as a broader point of interest, it does underline how movies drive significant discussion in the app.

The most creative use of Twitter went to Expedia which responded to other Super Bowl ads with these prompts to travel to various destinations based on each.

That campaign also includes a giveaway, again underlining the use of prizes as a promotional element.

In another category, Mr Peanut won the real-time response vote for this tweet, playing on the popular Coinbase ad that ran during the game.

Which is… it’s okay, I guess. I mean, it’s creative and links to a trend.

In terms of lessons to take away from the latest Super Bowl ads, there’s not a heap of strategic notes here, as most of the campaigns worked because they were from big brands or franchises, and involved major giveaways, boosting their numbers.

If anything, giveaways would be the big tip, highlighting that people will help to boost your promotions if there’s a possibility of them getting free stuff as a result, while there are also some interesting creative notes in responding to trends in order to latch onto broader discussions.

So, giveaways and real-time response, in-line with the broader viewer experience. Those seem to be the key tips. You can check out all the Twitter Brand Bowl winners for 2022 here.