Super Bowl Synchronicity

As ‘water cooler’ events go, the Super Bowl is about as big as it gets.  Given the surge of activity since last year’s game across the social TV and companion app landscape, there’s going to be a huge amount of activity this year.  Clearly this will be the biggest Super Bowl for ‘second screen’ and social TV apps. Apps and websites with any game-related content should see huge traffic spikes from last year.  What’s most interesting is that with all the interest in this burgeoning space, a number of national brands are looking to target this growing audience.

Some brands have created their own game and brand specific apps like Chevy.  As a demonstration of our synchronization platform, we’re running ads with a number of Super Bowl advertisers (including perennial game advertiser Go Daddy).  With them, we’ll be delivering digital advertising on social TV / companion apps sync’d in real-time to their TV spots during the game.  Ads will run on both iPhone apps and websites.  So, for those viewers engaged with apps like PrePlay Sports and Tapcast, when certain TV commercials run during the game, a complementary digital spot (a “Sync Ad”) will display on their smartphones, tablets or laptops.

We’ve seen huge levels of engagement with such ads in previous tests (e.g Ford on USA Networks’ Character Chatter app) and look forward to substantive learning from this initiative.  We’re planning to do research around these campaigns and look forward to sharing that post-Super Bowl.  This Super Bowl Sync Ad campaign is the first of a number of ‘water cooler’ events around which we plan to run Sync Ads.

Other upcoming events include the Oscar’s and the Final Four.  If you’re a brand or agency planning any TV advertising during any of these upcoming events and want to connect with the growing social TV audience, please reach out to us.  We’d love to discuss how this new medium can work for your brand.

---