#PuppyMonkeyBaby Owned Super Bowl Social Buzz, But Majority Of It Was Negative

Is it a win when you get people talking about your brand, even if most of that buzz is negative?

That’s a question that the marketing folks at Mountain Dew might be discussing today, after running their first Super Bowl commercials since 2000: Their #PuppyMonkeyBaby was the most buzzworthy hashtag during Sunday’s Super Bowl — but more than half of that conversation was negative.

The hashtag accompanied a Mountain Dew commercial and refers to the main character — a “thing” that’s one part puppy, one part monkey and one part baby. And yes, as some of the tweets yesterday and today show, it’s as bizarre as it sounds.

Did #Puppymonkeybaby come from a horror movie? It terrified me.

— R.L. Stine (@RL_Stine) February 8, 2016

If you see a #puppymonkeybaby on campus, please call us immediately. That thing is terrifying.

— DU Campus Safety (@DUCampusSafety) February 8, 2016

Can we all make a pact or take a blood oath right here and now never to speak of #puppymonkeybaby ever again? #ForAmerica ??

— LMR (@LilMissRightie) February 8, 2016

#puppymonkeybaby must die!

— George (@FlyerTalkerinA2) February 8, 2016

Shoutout to #puppymonkeybaby for giving me nightmares last night

— THE SLiME MASTER (@FRONZ1LLA) February 8, 2016

Data from Brandwatch shows that #PuppyMonkeyBaby was far and away the most talked-about hashtag during the Super Bowl. When the commercial aired, the hashtag earned almost 4,000 social mentions in the first minute — mostly on Twitter, Brandwatch tells us, although they do look at public data available from Facebook and Instagram. That was the single biggest peak of the day for any Super Bowl commercial hashtag. And overall, #PuppyMonkeyBaby earned more than 65,000 mentions during the game’s telecast.

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In terms of hashtag volume, it’s not even close. #PuppyMonkeyBaby earned about four times the mentions as the next most popular hashtag, #AvosInSpace, which had more than 16,000 mentions during the game. Here’s the full top five from Brandwatch:

1. #PuppyMonkeyBaby: more than 65,000 mentions
2. #AvosInSpace: more than 16,000 mentions
3. #CrashTheSuperBowl: nearly 14,000 mentions
4. #Pokemon20: more than 12,000 mentions
5. #OLEDisHere: more than 8,300 mentions
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#PuppyMonkeyBaby: Popular, But Not Liked

The tweets above are emblematic of the majority of conversation about the #PuppyMonkeyBaby hashtag. Brandwatch also tracks sentiment and tells us that 54 percent of the buzz about this hashtag was negative, making it one of the most disliked ads of the day.

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Although the chart shows #PuppyMonkeyBaby as the third-most negative hashtag of the day, Brandwatch says it actually came in second behind Doritos’ #CrashTheSuperBowl. The negative sentiment surrounding #HyundaiSuperBowl, which shows as the least liked hashtag above, isn’t exactly what it’s cracked up to be, as Brandwatch explained in an email to Marketing Land:

The hashtag with the most negative sentiment (77.6% negative) is #HyundaiSuperBowl, the reasoning for this is due to the fact that one of Hyundai’s spots featured Ryan Reynolds. Reynolds plays Deadpool in an upcoming film, and the Deadpool Twitter account engaged with Hyundai using some terms generally interpreted as negative. This wasn’t the case, but the sentiment reflects such. Deadpool’s fanbase engaged with these tweets and amplified the negative mentions. It’s more than fair to say that this hashtag wasn’t the most negatively discussed.

So it was #PuppyMonkeyBaby earning the most mentions during the Super Bowl, but the second-most negative mentions. It makes you wonder if Mountain Dew’s marketing team believes the old adage, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity as long as they spell your name right.” Or maybe in this case it’s “as long as they get your hashtag right.”

Here’s the video, so you can judge for yourself: