Consumers spent more than 350,000 combined hours watching Super Bowl LI ads on YouTube during the game itself, a new record and up 15% from 2016’s installment of the game, the Google-owned company reported Feb. 6.
Approximately 70% of that watch time came via mobile devices, with Anheuser-Busch ads taking the top two spots overall, with the Budweiser “Born The Hard Way” commercial No. 1 and the Bud Light “Ghost Spuds” spot coming in second. Ads from Hyundai, Kia and T-Mobile rounded out the top five.
Meanwhile, TiVo shared that Lady Gaga’s tech-filled halftime show saw more overall viewers than the game itself, marking the seventh straight year the Super Bowl halftime show drew more eyeballs than the game. However, looking at viewership of the past nine Super Bowl halftime shows, the pop star’s performance only ranked third, behind Madonna in 2012 and Katy Perry and Lenny Kravitz in 2015.
In-game viewer engagement peaked when New England Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady threw the winning touchdown in overtime, TiVo reported.
“As one of the biggest broadcasting events of the year, this epic showdown represents the perfect opportunity for brands and advertisers to attract and engage with fans on the grandest sports stage in the world,” said Paul Stathacopoulos, VP of strategy for TiVo, in a statement.
On the social media front, Facebook reported that 64 million people generated approximately 240 million interactions on Facebook during the game, with more than 90% of those interactions taking place via mobile devices. The social media giant reported 262 million views of Super Bowl-related videos on its platform.
Lastly, TV audience tracking tech company Alphonso TV estimated that as many as seven million people live-streamed the Super Bowl across all platforms, which would mark a huge increase from the just-under four million who live-streamed the game in 2016.
As of mid-day Feb. 6, Fox Sports had yet to release live streaming figures for the game.
