Oreo Wins for Best Super Bowl Ad You Likely Didn't See

Did you watch the Super Bowl last night? Did you care about the game or were you just there to see the commercials and watch Beyonce? It’s ok, I’m a huge football fan and the commercials and Beyonce were my main reason for tuning in this year since my beloved Packers were forced out by the 49ers.  I give a resounding “eh” to both the commercials and Beyonce’s performance, for what it’s worth.

Every year there is so much hype about the commercials that are going to air during the Super Bowl and my colleague Kate will be along shortly to wrap it all up nicely for you but for now, I’m here to tell you that you probably missed some of the best ads of the night if you weren’t on Twitter.

Nobody will ever forget that this is the Super Bowl the lights went out on and it was clear that CBS did not have any commercials on reserve in case the game ran long or something caused a delay. And, it’s not like you can just quickly whip up a TV commercial when something unexpected, like a power outage, occurs. But, if you’re a smart brand and prepared for such a scenario, you can quick whip up some banter on Twitter and make a “print” ad out of nothing.

Oreo has by far received the most praise for their quick wit and quick thinking. Within minutes of the power going out at the Superdome, Oreo took to Twitter with the following tweet:

As of today, that tweet has been retweeted more than 14,886 times! So how did Oreo react so fast? According toBuzzfeed Oreo didn’t just place all their eggs in the “Cookie or Creme” commercial basket, they had a full team on standby, including agency reps and Oreo brand team members, ready to strike if the opportunity presented itself.

And Oreo wasn’t the only one to get in on the action. Tide was right behind them putting out this tweet, and ad, a mere three minutes later.

Even Walgreens had some fun with the situation:

While it’s fun to share these images and talk about the Super Bowl winners (personally, I’m still tearing up over the Budweiser Clydesdales commercial) and losers (anything GoDaddy does) the real point is the continued power of social media. Oreo was ready to strike and it paid off for them – big time. I know many people who still turn their noses up at social media and scoff at the idea of using it, but when timed correctly it can be incredibly effective. Oreo paid millions to have their commercial run during the Super Bowl but being quick to post that ad on Twitter is priceless. Not every company should try to replicate exactly what Oreo, Tide and Walgreens did but it does go to show that you should never put your social media on autopilot.  Too often we push social media to the side, assign it to an intern to handle or worse, set it and forget it. Social media isn’t going away and brands like Oreo are already light years ahead in their mastery of how to use it effectively.