Doritos won with its “Crash the Super Bowl” consumer-generated commercials. One spot featured a dog who bribed a man with Doritos to conceal the whereabouts of the family cat. A second spot featured a grandmother who sling-shots a baby in a swinging seat toward a tree fort to grab a bag of Doritos from a little boy. The second and third place overall finishers were Swedish apparel retailer H&M with a provocative spot starring soccer star David Beckham modeling underwear, and Chrysler, with a powerful message about the American economic recovery.  The Chrysler commercial starred legendary actor/director Clint Eastwood. The spots appeared during a closely contested game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots.

 BRAND BOWL TOP SCORERS
When all was said and done, the top ten brands (a combination of volume and popularity) were:

1. Doritos (48,811 Tweets) (Sentiment +29%)
2.  H&M (44,031 Tweets) (Sentiment +14%)
3. Chrysler (33,943 Tweets) (Sentiment +10%)
4. Pepsi (39,765 Tweets) (Sentiment +8%)
5. Chevrolet (36,934 Tweets) (Sentiment +17%)
6. M&M’s (18,316 Tweets) (Sentiment +41%)
7. Budweiser (18,916 Tweets) (Sentiment +12%)
8. VW (17,131 Tweets) (Sentiment +26%)
9. Coke (18,463 Tweets) (Sentiment +4%)
10. Bud Light (15,298 Tweets) (Sentiment +18%)

MOST LIKED BRANDS
Those with the highest number of “positive” tweets were:

1.      M&M’s (Sentiment +41%)

2.      Best Buy (Sentiment +30%)

3.      Doritos (Sentiment +29%)

LEAST LIKED BRANDS
Those with the highest number of “negative” tweets were:

1. Go Daddy (Sentiment -10%)
2. Cars.com (Sentiment -2%)
3. Lexus (Sentiment -1%)

MOST VOLUME OF TWEETS
The most talked-about brands (those with the highest number of overall tweets) were:

1.      Doritos  (48,811 Tweets)

2.      H&M (44,031 Tweets)

3.      Pepsi  (39,765 Tweets)

Mullen and Boston.com, one of the nation’s largest regional news portals, teamed up to present BrandBowl2012, a Twitter/Super Bowl experience that used real-time analytics from SalesForce Radian6 to determine which brands were getting the most and least amount of commentary and which brands were getting the most positive and negative tweets during the telecast. BrandBowl2012 ranked the commercials using some of the most comprehensive social media metrics available to analyze the full Twitter data stream.

This is the fourth year that Mullen has run Brand Bowl and its second year of partnering with Boston.com to create the online experience where participants could view their tweets and see the dynamic brand rankings during the game. New features this year included:

• “Head-to-head” statistical breakdowns between brands
• A “featured tweet” section that highlighted funny and insightful tweets from participants
• A streamlined Brand Bowl mobile experience so users could more easily see the live rankings and tweet their votes.

Brand Bowl 2012 Game Day Site

OK football and TV advertising fans, the game day edition of Brand Bowl 2012 is live. Mullen and Boston.com together have launched Brand Bowl 2012, a social media event using Salesforce Radian6 to analyze the Twitter commentary and rate the most popular and disastrous Super Bowl TV commercials.

Realizing how social media has changed the way fans enjoy the game, Mullen launched the original Brand Bowl four years ago when Twitter was just a niche platform. Boston.com, one of the nation’s largest regional news portals, began hosting the information on their site last year. The virtual event at BrandBowl2012.com features an up-to-the-minute stream of Tweets about Super Bowl commercials to determine which brands are the most and least effective. Last year, over 300,000 Tweets were counted to determine the winner of Brand Bowl 2011. Chrysler finished number one and Cars.com finished at the bottom in last year’s rankings. The brands are ranked based on volume (who has the most/least chatter) and sentiment (who has the most/least positive and negative comments).

“Advertising is social, and given that Twitter’s active user base continues to grow and that armchair advertising critics are an expanding population in social media, we expect to get some outstanding data this year,” said Edward Boches, chief innovation officer at Mullen. “The most savvy brands are recognizing the power of social media and have released their commercials before the Super Bowl to build the buzz online, and have been orchestrating elaborate social media campaigns to maximize the impact of their multi-million dollar investments.”

“We’re excited to host Brand Bowl again this year with Mullen, and it gives us yet another opportunity to provide our readers with the interactive experience that they’ve come to expect from Boston.com,” said Ron Agrella, editor of Boston.com. “We aim to not just provide content, but to engage our readers in the public conversation, especially surrounding a significant event like the Super Bowl.”

New features this year include:

• “Head-to-head” statistical breakdowns between brands
• A “featured tweet” section that highlights funny and insightful tweets from participants
• A streamlined Brand Bowl mobile experience so users can more easily see the live rankings and Tweet their votes

Participation in Brand Bowl is easy. During the game, users can reference a specific commercial or simply include the hashtag #brandbowl in their Tweets to voice their opinions. The Tweets will be streamed live on Boston.com and a new mobile-friendly version of the Brand Bowl site during the game.

The single page feature also includes videos of the commercials and lets readers share Tweets, post images, follow conversations and see what other Super Bowl commercial fans are saying – good or bad – about their favorite ads. Post-game, the winners and losers are ranked in these categories: top scores (a combination of volume and popularity), most popular, most volume, and least effective.

Enjoy the game and the commercials everybody and please check back throughout the game to see who’s winning Brand Bowl 2012.

Luckily for Mullen, the 1999 Monster.com spot When I Grow Up is still in the mix. Thanks Teressa and Fast Co. for recognizing this gem from Mullen’s past.

We’re hoping that some enterprising reporter will track down the kids who were cast in this spot and see how their careers are going.  Hopefully they’re all gainfully employed in inspiring jobs with dynamic companies or at least doing something to save the world.

My, has Mullen come a long way. What was once merely a reliable regional shop is now attracting the hottest digital brands around — including Google and LivingSocial — and gets entrusted with international campaigns despite the fact it doesn’t have any offices abroad. In 2011, Mullen found 20% revenue growth while having a lot of fun with its work. For Zappos, it executed a zany homepage takeover on Yahoo’s website so viewers saw a scantily clad man running across the screen. The point was to demonstrate that Zappos is about a lot more than shoes. To get the word out that JetBlue lets passengers’ first bag fly free, it set up an exhibit of celebrity luggage in Los Angeles that also raised $50,000 for DoSomething.org. Its biggest project was leading the international brand launch for Google’s Galaxy Nexus phone, for which Mullen’s creative is running across four continents. The agency is charting the course for the next generation of leadership, making Alex Leikikh president in its Boston office as Joe Grimaldi moved to Chairman-CEO.

Big congrats to all of the agencies profiled in the A-List issue, in particular McGarryBowen, Ad Age’s Agency of the Year, and Droga5, Creativity’s Agency of the Year. Winning and being bold was their recipe for success.

It’s that time of year again. The online Superbowl party that Mullen started three years ago to celebrate the age of Twitter is well into development. If you remember, we began our annual project when there weren’t very many ad types on Twitter. In 2009, most of the industry was still like “huh?”

A few of us at Mullen, the kind folks at Radian 6, and some friends like Sally Hogshead and Lisa Hickey made the effort to get ad land excited. We launched what was then called Trash Talk from the Twitter Section, shared instructions for how to sign up for Twitter, and encouraged people to open accounts. Today it’s hard to imagine that Twitter needed an introduction as recently as three years ago.

Now here we are for our fourth anniversary and we’re excited to introduce some new features. For starters, we’ve made the site, brandbowl2012.com, more interactive. (Note that at this posting it re-directs to last year’s site.) For the first time, users will be able to compare brands head to head in a statistical showdown. Whose ads are getting more attention or more favorable reaction? Brandbowl knows.

We’ve isolated a box at the top of the page, held high by a digital fan, to feature the best tweets of the game. Post something particularly insightful or clever and you could find your tweet featured atop the stream for everyone to see.

Brandbowl 2012 also has some new data to share. This year’s analytics will track the geo location of tweets and also the gender of the participant. Might be interesting to see comparisons between the sexes when it comes to talking about Superbowl ads.

The mobile experience will be better, too. Let’s face it, there’s likely to be more people watching the game with a smartphone in hand than a laptop resting on their knees. You’ll be able to check live rankings and post instantly from your iPhone or Android. Given that it’s a site, not an app, it will work everywhere.

And finally, we’ve been approached by Billboard, which wants to get in on the action. So we’ve offered them the featured tweet board for the half-time show. Madonna better watch out. Billboard knows what it’s talking about when it comes to reviewing music and performances.

Once again, our partner Radian 6 is back with its sentiment data and analytics. And for the second year in a row Boston.com is hosting the site and helping to promote it.  Given that Twitter’s active user base continues to grow and that social media advertising couch critics is an expanding population, we expect to get some pretty good data.

Hope to see you there. On brandbowl2012.com. Using the easy to remember hashtag #brandbowl. I know who I’m rooting for. The creative.

If you need a reminder or are interested in what this is all about, here’s a video recap of last year’s effort.

But in Las Vegas, Nevada, another primary of sorts will be taking place on January 10. That’s the start of the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), when more than 2,700 exhibitors from 140 countries will attract nearly 150,000 attendees to experience more than 20,000 product launches. For the tech companies that participate, CES is the key time to make stump speeches, roll out their 9-9-9 plans and dazzle media, retailers and the public with their amazingly innovative solutions.

Like Vegas itself, CES is a gaudy, inflated, all-you-can eat buffet of delights. Anyone who has attended the tradeshow can attest: it’s exhausting. Not just because walking the enormous space wears out your soles, but because the information overloads your system.

That’s why Mullen banded together with JetBlue Airways and leading social media analytics provider Pointslocal to develop CE Pulse. It’s a real-time, interactive gauge of online public opinion that helps consumers and marketers filter through the overwhelming hype to understand how consumers actually feel about brands and products. CE Pulse tracks and ranks social sentiment so you can see what’s important to the masses. Which brands and products are leading the pack? What gear do I want to blow my paycheck on in 2012?

CE Pulse is the latest in a series of social media monitoring and analysis projects from Mullen. For the past three years, we’ve held BrandBowl to gauge consumer sentiment surrounding Super Bowl TV commercials. Working with Pointslocal, we’ve also measured consumer sentiment related to major sports teams with The Pulse/Boston Red Sox and The Pulse/New England Patriots.

We think that brands that listen to how consumers talk about them are in a better position to engage in a dialogue with those consumers. Social media monitoring tools like CE Pulse enable consumers and brands to truly understand how the public perceives new products and to filter through the noise to uncover valuable information. As the candidates would say, and brands should learn to say, “It’s not about me—it’s about you!”

For a play-by-play report from our own Wolf in the field, follow @CE_Pulse on Twitter and visit the site.

“I’m tremendously excited about Sean coming on board to run digital media and social influence,” said John Moore, Chief Media Officer at Mullen. “His Forrester background makes him a unique asset and embeds in Mullen one of the preeminent thinkers in a space that is keeping CMOs up at night. We look forward to Sean creating a new vision and helping our clients navigate critically important channels like social, mobile and gaming, to name just a few.”

“Integrating different media silos is an imperative for marketers to succeed in the digital era,” said Corcoran. “And to do this at Mullen – with its hyperbundled approach to integrating creative, media, and technology, along with its stellar portfolio of clients such as Google, Zappos, and JetBlue – makes the opportunity even that much more exciting.”

Hey, speaking of beatbox videos, did you see this one we did for Google?

Our digital holiday project was called Snowify.me, an experimental HTML5 holiday card creator made with Google Maps v3. As you’ll see when you go on the site, you simply type in the location you want to snowify, decorate, and share your panoramic card with the world. And the gallery of decorations includes all kinds of fun icons from 2011, including the lovely newlywed Royal Couple and your friendly “Occupiers.”

A stealth creative and technical team at Mullen put Snowify together and, as you can read on Creativity_Unbound, this kind of was the “Accidental Holiday Card.”

Happy Holidays All!  Let it snowify!