Measuring the Twitter Bowl

Doritos ruled in the world of Twitter during Sunday's Super Bowl game.

According to a survey by Minneapolis ad agency Colle+McVoy, more tweets accompanied Frito-Lay ads than any other product, including Budweiser.

In particular, Twitter users enjoyed the Doritos ad called "House Rules" in which a sixish-year-old admonishes his mom's new boyfriend to "keep your hands off my momma and keep your hands off my Doritos."

"I think people were attracted to those because they were user-generated," said Colle+McVoy creative director Mike Caguin, referring to the Frito-Lay contest for do-it-yourself ads to air during the game, which also featured the "Snack Attack Samurai Attack'' ad by Twin Cities film makers Ben Krueger and Cole Koehler. "It was good humor. It was anticipation."

Colle+McVoy tracked viewers' Twitter comments via a proprietary Web tool called Squawq, designed to allow clients to track what others were saying about them on the social-networking site. The program declared Frito-Lay, maker of Doritos, the Twitter winner, capturing 21 percent of the chatter on game day. The software identified more than 185,000 tweets about Super Bowl ads on game day, tracking 36 advertisers with a total of 56 spots among them. (See all the standings at squawq.com/superbowl/)

Colle+McVoy also tracked tweets involving the Colts and the Saints in the football-playing portion of the game Sunday. The world champion Saints also proved to be the winner in the world of social networks, with 675,000 tweets by game's end, 90 percent more tweets than the Colts.

Sunday was the first time the agency used Squawq to measure comments from an advertising event. And what an advertising event it was. The Nielsen Co. said the Super Bowl was the most-watched program in the history of television, with more than 106 million viewers.

Among the ads producing the most tweets were ones for Snickers that featured veteran actors Betty White and Abe Vigoda, the men-without-pants ad for Dockers, the talking babies for E-Trade and the surprise hit of the night, the Google ad about how to impress a French woman.

Game better than ads

But the consensus among agency experts was that the 2010 Super Bowl ads lacked some of the edge of previous years.

"I think the general consensus was that the game was better than the ads this year," Caguin said.

Periscope CEO Greg Kurowski agreed. "I'd give the class of 2010 a solid B," he said.

"I've never seen that much balance to make everyone happy without being tacky."

Even the "Focus on the Family'' ad featuring college football star Tim Tebow and his mom was underwhelming, Kurowski said. "Nothing was overly provocative."

Kurowski said in these tough economic times, advertisers are playing it conservative out of concern for a consumer backlash. "Nobody wants to push the envelope," he said.

Periscope had two local market buys during the Super Bowl: one ad for the Minnesota Twins and the team's new ballpark and another for Kemps ice cream.

Mike Gray, president of the Minneapolis agency Martin Williams, called Sunday's commercial offerings "mediocre."

"I wasn't impressed. They had the normal use of celebrities and the Budweiser Clydesdales, but nothing where you said, 'I love that.'''

Gray attributed the unimpressive collection of ads to conservative ad budgets and conservative thinking.

"People are playing it safe this year," Gray said. "The Super Bowl is still the premier place for advertising. But I didn't see anyone swing for the fence. I only saw them trying not to strike out."

In USA Today's ranking of Super Bowl ads, the Betty White/Snickers ad was ranked at the top, followed by the Doritos ad where a dog puts a shock collar on its owner and a Bud Light ad featuring a house made of beer cans.

David Phelps • 612-673-7269