The Super Bowl is less than a week away, which means it’s time for the annual examination of Big Game ads past and present. If you want to get a taste of the sort of ads we can expect in 2014, YouTube’s AdBlitz channel has you covered. On the other hand, if you’re curious about the previous big players of the Internet age, Unruly Media has released its list of the brands that have achieved the most social shares for their Super Bowl ads.
Budweiser is probably the brand best associated with its Super Bowl ads, but it is second on Unruly’s list behind Volkswagen. The German car company owes most of its social media success to ‘The Force‘, which has been shared more than 5.2 million times since it first aired in 2011. That total is on its own enough to top any other brand in the top ten except Budweiser, and makes up 74% of all of Volkswagen’s Super Bowl shares.
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Three other car companies–Ram Trucks, Chevrolet, and Chrysler–also cracked the top ten. In Ram and Chrysler’s cases, individual ads made up the bulk of the shares. Ram Trucks’ ‘Farmer’ ruled last year’s game, while Chrysler’s Eminem-flavored ‘Welcome to Detroit‘ made a large impact in 2011.
The other five brands in the top ten are Universal, Paramount Pictures, Doritos, M&Ms, and Samsung. This means that several of the Super Bowl’s most regular advertisers, such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, did not crack the list. Clearly, in terms of social sharing, brands who pay for Super Bowl spots should aim for one smash hit rather than yearly consistency.
