In 2018, Cars.com underwent its first-ever rebrand since its launch in 1998. In a cluttered market focused on functionality, Cars.com repositioned themselves as a brand that exists to create chemistry between people and cars by introducing the 'We Met on Cars.com' campaign that showcased us a matchmaker that revs your engine and makes sparks fly.

Therefore, when it came time for Super Bowl, we knew online cars searches spike during the big game (largely due to high profile car ads), so we aimed to intercept this behavior and redirect people to Cars.com to find their “one.” The Big Match leaned into a popular search behavior, but even more interesting to us was that it allowed us to lead with our purpose and play matchmaker on the world’s biggest stage.

Days before Super Bowl, we teased The Big Match on social and pre-roll. Without showing our hand, we built up hype for “the biggest match of the year”. Then on Super Bowl Sunday, we introduced The Big Match and our Matchmaker on @carsdotcom’s Twitter account. Our Matchmaker was ready to live-tweet reply to every advertising brand whose ad featured a car.

When a brand’s ad aired, we reply-tweeted with a customized video link to the exact car on Cars.com. Every response delivered customized content: Expensify dripped in gold while Pepsi featured the iconic drink shot. If a user liked the car in the ad, they could meet it on Cars.com with a single click. We even turned Maroon 5’s halftime show into the Halftime Showroom featuring Five Maroon Cars.

We also intercepted Google traffic by running tailored SEM ads any time someone searched for a Super Bowl spot.

Our “way in” for Cars.com during the Super Bowl sparked from the insight that interest in car brands spikes during the days around the Big Game, thanks to the wave of new car ads. With the incredibly broad reach of Super Bowl, we knew many of the fans would also be in the market for their perfect car.

We used keyword analysis, Google Trends research, and social listening to understand where Super Bowl viewers were getting their fix for car commercials, defining three key platforms for Cars to win: Google search, Twitter, and YouTube.

We focused on building upon existing behaviors of Super Bowl fans, intercepting them where they already are. We steered these people to Cars.com by demonstrating that their interest for great car commercials mirrored our brand purpose of finding car-shoppers their perfect automotive match.

In the days leading up to Super Bowl, we teased The Big Match through paid media on social as well as pre-roll. Without showing our hand, we got our audience excited for “the biggest match of the year”.

Then on Super Bowl Sunday, we introduced The Big Match and our Matchmaker on @carsdotcom’s Twitter account. Our Matchmaker was ready to live-tweet during the game by replying to every advertising brand whose ad featured a car.

When a brand’s ad aired, we replied to their Twitter post of the ad with a customized video link to the exact car on Cars.com. Every response delivered customized content: Expensify dripped in gold, while Pepsi featured the iconic drink shot. If a user liked the car in the ad, they could find their match on Cars.com with a single click.

Despite being the busiest night of the year where so many brands compete for attention with big budgets, and famed celebs, The Big Match resonated online and brought to life Cars.com’s new purpose as a matchmaker.

During the evening of Super Bowl Sunday alone, the campaign received 27+ million views, 970K+ tweets, and increased site traffic by 42% for that day.

SEO Traffic on Super Bowl Sunday was +57.9% over Super Bowl Sunday in 2018.

And perhaps best of all, we made millions of matches that left people saying “we met on Cars.com.”