Twitter recognizes Heinz Ketchup, Budweiser, NBA and more in its ‘Best of 2018’ list

According to Twitter, KFC was the best brand voice on its platform this year. As a year-end wrap up, Twitter’s brand strategy team compiled a “Best of” list naming the brands they believed stood out in 2018. Of the eleven categories — from Best Brand Voice to Best Launch Moment — using Twitter as a complementary strategy seemed to be a running theme among many of the brands acknowledged, including Heinz Ketchup, Budweiser, Bud Light, HBO’s Silicon Valley and the NBA.

Twitter as a launching pad. Heinz Ketchup was named the winner in the Best Launch Moment category. The brand generated 2.4 billion impressions on Twitter during its Mayochup product launch — a campaign that was initiated after a fan Tweeted a photo of the product from a grocery store located in Kuwaiti.

Heinz jumped on the opportunity to turn the Tweet into a conversation about whether or not it should launch the product in the U.S. — which resulted in earned media placement off Twitter — and led to an official product launch after a Twitter poll received more than 930,000 votes.

Want #mayochup in stores? 500,000 votes for “yes” and we’ll release it to you saucy Americans.

— Heinz Ketchup (@HeinzKetchup_US) April 11, 2018

Twitter as a complementary strategy for events. Anheuser-Busch brands Bud Light and Budweiser were both recognized by Twitter. Bud Light was named the as the Best Way to Fuel Fans brand for its #DillyDilly campaign that complemented the brand’s official Super Bowl TV spot.

Budweiser’s Twitter campaign for this year’s World Cup event was noted as the Best Event Activation strategy. The brand was recognized for being able to, “…complement big cultural events and drive rich conversation around those moments.” Twitter reports Budweiser was the most mentioned brand during the World Cup event — generating 115 billion impressions.

Budweiser also implemented a custom-built voting platform designed by Twitter that allowed fans to vote for the “Man of the Match” for every World Cup competition during the tournament.

Best use of Twitter in an experiential marketing campaign. Another brand that was highlighted for using Twitter as a complementary strategy was HBO’s Silicon Valley. The cable television show received the Best Digital to Physical Activation honor for a campaign that involved delivering pizza to viewers’ front doors. Twitter said HBO was able to bring the “magic of Twitter” into real life by converging digital and experiential.

“On the premiere night of Season 5, HBO used Twitter to turn a plotline into reality for fans. Viewers could experience ‘SliceLine’ by tweeting #SliceLine and the pizza emoji to have a pizza delivered right to their home,” said Twitter.

The brand strategy team called HBO’s move a prime example of how a brand can merge a digital concept with a physical activation that engage fans by providing an actual experience.

Bringing influencers into the conversation. Winning the Best use of Creators award, the NBA on TNT was recognized for its ability to leverage influencers and creators on Twitter. The brand recruited local artists from NBA cities like Boston, Los Angeles and Portland to create artwork inspired by their NBA teams. The artwork was then shared on NBA on TNT’s social media accounts, the artists’ social accounts, and featured on billboards and other OOH ad channels in the respective NBA team cities — designing a Twitter strategy supported by local advertising.

Why you should care. Selected by Twitter’s own brand strategy team, the company’s “Best of…” list is not a ranking of the most successful Twitter brand campaigns, but instead, a round up of the more notable campaign executions on the platform. What is interesting in terms of marketing strategy is the number of brands who are using the platform as a complementary strategy — from Heinz using a single Twitter thread to initiate an entire product launch campaign to the NBA taking Twitter content offline for OOH advertising in various cities across the country.

Twitter’s list shows how savvy marketers are finding new and unique ways to leverage Twitter campaigns so that they boost results across the board and seamlessly coordinate with strategies happening off the platform.