As the Sochi Olympics begin to wind down, we’ve seen a change in the brand sponsors generating the strongest social engagement in the past week. Domestically, Visa has taken over for largest increase in social engagement during the past week.
The Sochi Olympics kicked off with Friday’s Opening Ceremony, which demonstrated hundreds of years of Russian history. From the days of Greek legends to the industrial revolution to the Russian accomplishments in space, the performance set the energy for the rest of the Olympics. With the events now underway, and Norway in the lead with the highest medal count, we decided to take a look at what events and athletes generated the strongest social engagement over the weekend.
The 2014 Sochi Olympics officially kick off today with the Opening Ceremony. Over the next two and half weeks, 6,000 athletes from 85 countries will compete in 15 sports. That means there’ll be lots of social data to report on!
Here at AddThis, we are missing the Olympics, so we pulled together some interesting tidbits from sharing across our 14 million sites. We looked at social mentions, the ultimate measure of user engagement. Mentions bring together all types of original shares and searches to Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or whatever service you’re into. With that measure, here are some Olympics winners:
(Click image for larger version.)
Girls Got Gold
They are women, watch them win! A huge trend at the this year’s Olympic games was the US women dominating, in their events and socially. Not only did they take home 29 gold medals – more than most countries! – they also beat out their male counterparts in the battle of social mentions on the AddThis network.
It was only fitting that the original Girl Power group, the Spice Girls, reunited for the closing ceremonies to spice up your life.
Chobani Crowned Brand Champ
We’ve been tallying scores daily to see which Team USA sponsors and other top advertisers were leading the pack with their Olympic campaigns. It was an impressive field of competitors including veterans McDonalds, Visa and Coca-Cola. But newcomer Chobani Greek Yogurt ultimately came out on top!
Chobani launched their first TV campaign only 16 months ago, so hats off to them for such a successful showing at this year’s games. The silver went to Kellogg’s and Visa took bronze.
Congrats to all the advertisers on a great 2012 Olympics!
Sports Getting Social
So we know the athletes who were talked about and the brands that made a bang, but which events overall had people atwitter across the social web? Gymnastics, swimming and beach volleyball!
Is it just us or are we seeing a trend with provocative uniforms and most talked about events? The tighter the fit, the more vocal the audience? Just sayin’. ;)
During last night’s telecast of the US Women’s soccer gold medal victory and Usain Bolt’s dash to glory, we saw an amazing trend on our network. Bolt’s win coincided with Hope Solo’s amazing second half save to hold onto the US’s 2-1 lead over Japan. Immediately, the internet reacted:
This is a fascinating example of real-time TV events impacting online social activity. In this chart, you can see down to the minute when the conversation changed from Usain to Hope. Overall, Hope spiked the most and we think it’s well deserved recognition!
McDonald’s and Kellogg’s were neck and neck yesterday with social mentions each increasing by 6%. For the second day in a row, McDonald’s increased Twitter followers by more than 1,600 users. Looks like folks are really responding to The Simple Joy of Winning. In the UK, the We All Make the Games campaign strategy that puts “user generated content front and centre of Olympic advertising” is exceeding the fast food chain’s expectations.
Nike takes home the bronze. Will the impressive 3,000+ increase in Twitter followers lead to a Gold for the retailer tomorrow? Stay tuned to the Daily Scorecard and we shall see…
Visa scored their second gold medal in today’s brand races, most likely due to an 11% increase in mentions on the AddThis network. A recent CNBC article brought light to the fact that Visa cardholders have contributed $1.4B to the UK tourism industry during the Olympic games. Sounds like it’s a well deserved spot on the podium!
McDonalds wasn’t able to medal this round, but did return an impressive 1771 Twitter followers. Maybe it was the free advertising from the women’s Chinese basketball team uniforms? We kid, we kid. :)
Omega, the official timekeeper of the Olympics, is back on top of the brand medal stand today with a Gold in social mentions and adding to another Gold one week ago.
The top medal winner so far, Chobani Greek yogurt, adds another Silver.
Nike, the company providing those neon green kicks for the US athletes, got the mentions Bronze and more than 3,400 new Twitter followers.
Though Kelloggs held onto their first place position in today’s brand scorecard, Nike and McDonalds have gained an impressive amount of Twitter followers over the past 24 hours.
McDonalds acquired over 6000 and Nike over 2000. Very impressive numbers!
