Social Media Trends from

NCAA March Madness 2014

March 16-April 6, 2014

Total March Madness Mentions:

5,583,821That’s 253,810 mentions per day!

Total Mentions of Targeted Brands during March Madness:

69,340

Turns in Conversation

Despite a significant drop in conversation midweek, there were still over 100,000 posts daily until the conclusion of the Elite Eight round.

The weekend of the Final Four boosted daily volume back over 100,000. However, each weekend of the tournament had fewer posts than the one before it.

The tournament’s opening days provided the most discussion as brackets were submitted and the rounds of 64 and 32 kicked off.

16/03/2014 21/03/2014 26/03/2014 31/03/2014 05/04/20140

100,000

200,000

300,000

400,000

500,000

600,000

700,000

800,000

900,000

Top Hashtags Mentioned

• Official tournament hashtags took the top spots, but MTV pulled off a coup by injecting a non-sports-related hashtag into the conversation with their Musical March Madness contest (#MMM), which pitted 64 bands against each other in a bracket-style competition.

• If Monday night’s game between Kentucky and Connecticut is anything like their battle for hashtag supremacy, viewers should be in for a heck of a game. As of Sunday evening, Kentucky had a slim lead over their Husky counterparts. However, Kentucky fans are also causing #BBN (Big Blue Nation) to shoot up the hashtag ranks.

• Dove’s #TournamentDecisions contest allowed them to be the only tournament-related brand to find a place in the top ten for hashtags used. #woodenaward

#badgers

#tournamentdecisions

#bbn

#uconn

#kentucky

#mmm

#ncaa

#finalfour

#marchmadness

0 20,000 40,000 60,000 80,000 100,000

3,680

5,840

6,220

8,271

8,838

9,468

16,311

31,934

64,286

88,530

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Top 5 Most Mentioned Users

@MTVNews15,825 Mentions

@MarchMadness10,356 Mentions

@TokioHotel9,765 Mentions

@NCAA5,684 Mentions

@UConnHuskies4,952 Mentions

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Top 10 Most Mentioned Teams

Kentucky263,078 Mentions

Florida227,734 Mentions

Michigan191,953 Mentions

Dayton189,421 Mentions

Connecticut166,366 Mentions

Wisconsin146,918 Mentions

Duke118,787 Mentions

Arizona109,353 Mentions

Louisville93,758 Mentions

Mercer83,956 Mentions

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There were 17 brands that served as corporate sponsors to March Madness. Their names were mentioned 69,340 times over the course of the tournament. That makes for 3,301 NCAA-related brand mentions per day.

• AT&T had the most mentions, but benefitted from having its name on AT&T Stadium in Arlington Texas, which hosted the Final Four. Prior to those games, the company sponsored courtside photos which were shared heavily over Twitter.

• Brands such as Burger King, Capital One, Reese’s and Enterprise accumulated mentions through contests that encouraged social sharing.

• Buffalo Wild Wings seemed to benefit the most from organic mentions, with people talking about eating there while watching games or mentioning their commercials.

Official Sponsor Share Of Voice

0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000

154

305

501

516

594

708

739

1,432

2,093

2,593

2,615

2,672

3,468

3,576

4,164

5,671

37,546

AT&TCapital OneUPSReese'sBurger KingBuffalo Wild WingsEnterpriseLGLowe'sCoca-ColaNorthwestern MutualInfinitiBuickKindle FireNabiscoAllstateUnilever

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Pizza Hut vs. Papa John’s: The battle over pizza

• Neither Pizza Hut nor Papa John’s are official sponsors of March Madness. But like many brands, that didn’t stop them from trying to ambush their way into advertising around the tournament.

• Despite not being able to use any official NCAA language in their campaigns, both brands picked up some mentions alongside the phrases “March Madness,” “Final Four,” and “NCAA,” with Pizza Hut grabbing 977 mentions and Papa John’s collecting 413.

• A search for brand names over the same period (without “March Madness,” “NCAA,” or “Final Four”) saw Pizza Hut pick up 352,312 mentions and Papa John’s collect 83,769.

Papa John's

Pizza Hut

0 200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200

413

977

Papa John's

Pizza Hut

0 100,000 200,000 300,000 400,000

83,769

352,312

Total Brand Mentions

March Madness Brand Mentions