iSuperBowl

Along with 97 million other people, I watched the Super Bowl last Sunday evening. Along with over 200 other people, I tweeted during the Super Bowl about the game and of course the ads.

On the Friday before the Super Bowl, Robert Rosenthal invited all members of the facebook group, What I Saw at the Direct Marketing Revolution,
to join him on Twitter to comment about the game.

Our family had opted out of Super Bowl parties this year, so Rosenthal's invite was a great way for my family to be part of a virtual party and still squeeze in toddler baths, homework and make little one's bedtimes.

So a little before kick-off, I logged into Twitter and saw this tweet from Jeremiah Owyang:



Jeremiah created an easy ad critic rating system and dubbed his experiment “the twitterbowl”.

So my family and I found ourselves evaluating ads on a 1-5 scale. Our kids took turns sitting in my lap or near me watching the Super Bowl conversation unfold on twitter.com. Our 4 yr old asked me to change my twitter profile picture from “a cartoon” (an avatar) to “real” (a photograph.) I’d read them comments and we’d debate other people’s ratings.



I was truly surprised with how engaged I stayed with the twitterbowl. I didn’t venture off, multi-task online (do bills, catch up on email, etc.) as I thought I would. I was glued to the twitterbowl and occasionally looking up at the TV to check out the game and watch the ads. Occasionally, I’d venture to the URL posted with the ad, such as Tide’s mytalkingstain.com (Loved it!), but everything I did online during the game was about the game. For someone with adult ADD, this is a feat.

As posts came in literally seconds apart, I was amazed at the variance in ranking. Commercials I loved, others absolutely hated. Also, during halftime as I was doing laundry, helping kiddos with baths, etc, I carried my mobile phone with me to keep tabs on the twitterati pulse via m.twitter.com on the half time entertainment and ads.

The reason I titled this iSuperBowl is because, this was the most interactive Super Bowl I’ve experienced. Where the pulse was immediate, compelling and twitterati controlled. Of course, I went to the Super Bowl spot’s microsites when there was a call-to-action (did I say how much I loved Tide's ;>); however the true online buzz, from my perspective, was pure community commentary – again another example of
community sourcing, twitterati-style.



To view the results of Jeremiah’s experiment, please see his recap post.

Follow me on Twitter, twitter.com/zenaweist.