That means that more than a third of the entire US population tunes in for the event. And for those who don’t have a dog in this fight (or don’t care for hand-egg in general) mini-events such as the Puppy Bowl and the AdBowl have garnered a residual following. But whatever you plan on watching on Sunday, you can be sure that snacks and soft drinks will be part of the celebration.
Throughout the calendar year, mega shopping events drive shoppers around the globe to increase their spending, be it Black Friday, Prime Day, or Singles’ Day. But there are also different cultural events within individual countries that help boost sales, such as Super Bowl weekend in the US. Known for generating enormous ad spend, Super Bowl weekend is also a great way for brands that may not have multi-million dollar TV advertising budgets to take advantage of public’s focus and attention on the event.
Sustained, Long-Term eCommerce Performance Pays Off
However, ecommerce performance is very different from your mass media strategy. It’s not a faucet that can quickly and easily be turned on and off. Throwing a “Hail Mary” won’t help you reap rewards during sales events; a sustained, long-term strategy that does the basic blocking and tackling all year long will position your brands to win.
Crucial to improving ecommerce performance is having visibility and benchmarking (at scale) into your brand’s presence, perception, and performance online. That’s where we come in. Our ecommerce analytics help global brands track thousands of items across multiple stores all over the world. Armed with these insights, we enable brands to design a comprehensive, long-term plan to win the digital shelf.
To help you get a peek behind the curtain, we analyzed the key elements of any Super Bowl party—the Snacks and Soft Drinks categories—at Amazon Fresh, Target, Walmart, and PeaPod. Read on to find out not only which brands are winning their categories online, but program components that got them there.
Which Brands Are Ready for the Big Game
Many global brands have positioned themselves well across all four online stores that we analyzed. Frito-Lay and Coca-Cola stand out as winners due to their strong performance on Search. Coca-Cola had 34 SKUs across all retailers rank on the first page of Search results. That kind of dominance guarantees that shoppers will come across at least a few of their products when looking for Super Bowl party items.
Dr. Pepper and A&W Root Beer are also well-positioned in the Soft Drinks categories thanks to their strong Ratings & Reviews. Of the 40 items listened across all retailers by A&W, only 6 of them had “poor” or “no” reviews, while the vast majority have both a high number of reviews and a star rating above 4.0. Sky Valley Soda is an example of a non-mainstream brand excelling in the ecommerce space, scoring high reviews across its entire portfolio on Target. This will allow Sky Valley to compete with the likes of Dr. Pepper and others for shoppers attention and shows how smaller brands can look to take advantage of the online channel to boost their visibility.
The Shopping Holidays Don't Stop
With the Super Bowl upon us, brands that have performed well in the Snack and Soft Drinks categories are going to enjoy a halo-effect of increased sales during the following week. For other brands looking to get in on the action, next month brings with it Valentine’s Day and an opportunity for candy brands to steal the spotlight.
