If you used Google to search for anything having to do with the Super Bowl (OK, not tickets or jersey), you most likely saw an ad for Lexus, Budweiser or Bud Light. These brands were the paid search champions on Super Bowl-related queries this year. Meanwhile, Super Bowl newcomers, Wix and Loctite, snuck in under the radar with their Google ad strategies.
Wix and Loctite’s Niche Approaches
In its excellent Digital Bowl Report, search and digital marketing firm, RKG, looked at advertisers whose paid search tactics ran outside targeting the typical Super Bowl keyword set. (The report also looks at email, social, SEO and display tactics.)
Wix, the website builder which had its Super Bowl debut this year featuring four “All Pro” websites, including Brett Favre’s FavreandCarve.com, used paid search to tie closely to its TV ad. RKG spotted this ad on the search result for the query “Favre and Carve”:
Wix ran ads on keywords for each of the websites featured in the TV spot.
Loctite, also a Super Bowl newbie this year, used mobile search to advertise on other Super Bowl advertiser brand names. RKG found Loctite ads showing up on mobile brand searches for BMW, Chevy, TurboTax and Skittles. In three out of the four examples shown, Loctite beat out the brand’s own ad. All of Loctite’s ads promoted the brands’ campaign hashtag #WinAtGlue.
Lexus took this one step further, advertising on competitors BMW and Mercedes brand terms in the week leading up to the game. RKG spotted a Lexus ad beating out a BMW ad on the brand search “BMW i3”.
Budweiser and Bud Light were all over the typical Super Bowl search queries (more on that in a bit). RKG also found Budweiser targeting ads on its campaign hashtag #BestBuds and BudLight running ads on the keyword “Pac Man” to tie in with its life-size Pac-Man game featured in its TV spot.
Lexus And The Buds Dominate Super Bowl Queries
Search monitoring firm, BrandVerity, tracked Google desktop and mobile ad impressions across a set of exact match keywords such as Super Bowl, Super Bowl Sunday, Super Bowl Ads, Super Bowl Commercials for Marketing Land in the week leading up to the big game. While Doritos got into the mix earlier than everyone else and candy brands made a go of it, Lexus and Bud Light and Budweiser raked in the impression volume in the final week.
The number of Super Bowl TV advertisers BrandVerity found using Google ads to amplify their campaigns increased from 10 last year to 17 in 2015.
Bud Light was one of the earliest advertisers on the scene. Here’s one of the brand’s ads promoting it’s “Old-School Fun”. Later ads incorporated the #UpForWhatever hashtag.
Both Bud Light and Budweiser used “Super Bowl” prominently in the ad headlines. Budweiser promoted its ticket contest and its #BestBuds ad using the campaign hashtag.
What’s surprising about this Lexus ad is that it didn’t refer to the Super Bowl at all.
Overall, RKG
deemed Wix the winner in the way it used digital marketing channels, including paid search, to support its TV ad during the big game. Bud Light, Budweiser, Doritos, and Coca-Cola rounded out the top five. And for all its Google impressions, Lexus failed to place in the top ten.
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