Branded Entertainment is a prevalent form of communication in the US. What makes this piece of branded content unique is that it was streamed live during the Super Bowl, to provide an added layer of entertainment to one of the most popular sporting events in the US. Although Coca-Cola has advertised during the Super Bowl for many years, Pepsi is actually the official sponsor of the National Football League (NFL). As a result, this branded-content effort faced challenges in being created and aired because we weren’t able to refer directly to the 2 teams playing against each other in the game.

When we were asked to bring Coca-Cola’s Polar Bears back for Super Bowl XLVI, we updated not only the bears themselves but also our approach to Super Bowl advertising. We created a digital-first integrated campaign that had the animated Polar Bears rooting for opposing teams and reacting to the game, live.

The campaign spanned mediums from web, to mobile, to OOH, to TV, tying all of these screens together with a real-time experience.As the game was played, we puppeted the animated Polar Bears, making them react to everything that happened during the Super Bowl. These reactions were live-streamed to CokePolarBowl.com where viewers could enjoy them on their second-screen devices in tandem with the game.

When our television spots aired, they were perfectly synced with our digital live stream, creating a seamless viewing experience across multiple screens.

The Coca-Cola Polar Bowl spots were seen by a record-breaking 132m people during the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the second-screen experience was viewed by over 9m users who engaged with the live stream for an average of 28 minutes on CokePolarBowl.com. On Twitter, Coca-Cola led all other advertisers with over 66,000 mentions during the game, peaking at 5,000 tweets per minute during the 'Catch' spot. Overall, brand buzz volume for Coke grew by a remarkable 2,067% versus last year's game.