This week, media planners, top agencies and brands were asked how they would spread their spending on campaigns around the Super Bowl. Unsurprisingly all the usual suspects made the list, from Facebook to Twitter to YouTube. But new to the top tier: Snapchat, which 31 percent said they planned to include in their Super Bowl campaigns, according to a survey conducted by AdParlor, a social marketing technology company.
Facebook would be a part of 82 percent of Super Bowl plans. YouTube was included in the plan of 69 percent of respondents, Twitter was 68 percent, and Instagram 56 percent. The survey didn’t ask about other platforms like Tumblr and Pinterest.
Still, broadly speaking the advertisers were interested in tapping Snapchat, but when it came down to divvying up budgets, their commitment was weaker.
“A lot of people are putting a lot of faith in Snapchat,” said AdParlor’s Paul Herdtner. “That was a stunning number to me.”
The survey asked for opinions from people at the big agencies and brands, from companies like Omnicom, Havas, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Starcom MediaVest. The people were asked what platforms would they include in Super Bowl marketing among Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.
“Snapchat was half YouTube and Facebook and even Twitter, but the fact is that you can’t really target on Snapchat in a profound way,” Herdtner said. On Snapchat, advertisers can’t identify specific customer groups and serve them ads through targeting technology, which is a specialty of the other platforms.
The advertisers were asked to break down their marketing budgets — what percentage would go to each platform if they were looking to reach millennial men. Snapchat would receive an average of 6 percent of that spending, the survey found. YouTube would get 27 percent, Facebook would get 25 percent, Twitter would get 22 percent, and Instagram would get the remaining 13 percent.
The results are notable because last year Snapchat was barely on brands’ radar with few marketing opportunities. Since last year’s game, Snapchat has started showing NFL games in its Live Story section, where fans share videos from the stadiums around the league.
It is unknown yet if the NFL will run a Live Story during the Super Bowl, but that won’t stop brands from posting to Snapchat during the game.
The survey also gives a sense of what marketers are thinking about as they go into 2016.
“The Super Bowl is a reflection of clients’ budgets next year,” said Chris Tuff, evp and director of business development and partnerships at 22squared.
Social media and digital advertising, in general, have become a big part of the frenzy around the Super Bowl. Twitter has become a fixture of these major events where fans and brands can sound off. YouTube is the go-to place for advertisers to post their high-value commercials.
And now, Facebook and Instagram are working together to dominate the conversation as a team.
When asked how advertisers would split the budgets to target millennial women during the Super Bowl, 69 percent of spending would be allocated to Facebook and Instagram on average. With the leftovers going to YouTube, Twitter and Snapchat, according to the survey.
Snapchat actually got a higher percentage than Twitter, 15 percent to 6 percent, of the budget targeted to the women.
The Super Bowl is set for Feb. 7 on CBS, which will be the first network to show all the TV commercials from the game during the online stream, as well.
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