McDonald’s Wins Twitter’s First “Top Spot” Award For Super Bowl

Twitter has declared a victor in the Super Bowl of advertising. McDonald’s received the most mentions on Twitter during Sunday’s big game telecast.

From coin flip to the completion of the New England Patriots’ 28-24 victory over the Seattle Seahawks, McDonald’s got 634,310 mentions on Twitter. The fast food giant cleverly goosed its results by offering giveaways related to products advertised by others during the game.

Among the McDonald’s retweet to win sweepstakes offers: a trip to Ecuador, a Mercedes C300, movie tickets for a year, a BMX i3, a ride in a helicopter, several smartphones and a year’s worth of Coca-Cola. The sweepstakes tweets were playful — airline tickets and a suitcase full of Doritos, anyone? — and each got at least 4,000 retweets, led by this one with more than 14,000:

Lovin’ that glistening @Lexus so much we want to whip our hair. RT to try to win a glistening new Lexus NX https://t.co/o5J9RBjuuj

— McDonald's (@McDonalds) February 2, 2015

With 455,695 mentions, Always was Twitter’s Top Spot runner-up. Budweiser was third with 371,900 mentions.

Tonight we are changing the meaning of #LikeAGirl to mean downright amazing. Vote to get the word out. http://t.co/gW0Qj7GMfv

— Always (@Always) February 2, 2015

Our MVPs are back. Watch our Super Bowl commercial again. #BestBuds #SB49 https://t.co/WFzoRBj2H5

— Budweiser (@Budweiser) February 2, 2015

Super Bowl Sets Record For Total Tweets

Overall, Twitter reported a record 28.4 million tweets related to the game, halftime show and commercials. That’s 3.1 million more tweets than the previous Super Bowl record established during the 2014 game. Facebook also reported record interaction for the game, and NBC posted the highest overnight television ratings for a Super Bowl.

More than three million tweets were generated during the halftime show, which featured Katy Perry, Lenny Kravitz and Missy Elliot. Twitter created an interactive map that shows how the conversation played out:

Here are moments that generated the biggest peaks of Twitter conversation, measured in tweets per minute, during the live telecast:

1. Malcolm Butler (@Mac_BZ) intercepts a pass by Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson) on the one-yard line with 20 seconds left in the game: 395,000 TPM
2. Patriots defeat Seahawks to become Super Bowl champions: 379,000 TPM
3. End of Katy Perry’s halftime performance: 284,000 TPM

The most-mentioned Patriots players were Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski (@RobGronkowski) and Julian Edelman (@Edelman11). The most mentioned Seahawks: Marshawn Lynch (@MoneyLynch), Russell Wilson (@DangeRussWilson), Chris Matthews (@TheRealCMaTT13).

Postscript: Twitter released an updated total — 36.04 million — for tweets related to the Super Bowl. The higher number includes a wider time window, three hours before and after the game. That’s the standard way Nielsen measures its Twitter TV ratings. Last year’s Nielsen Twitter TV total was 25.3 million.

Twitter also reported 2.5 billion impressions on Super Bowl related tweets, up from 1.8 billion in 2014.

About The Author

Martin Beck

Martin Beck was Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter from March 2014 through December 2015.