How Sprout Social’s Real-Time Listening Revealed the True Winners of the Big Game's Ad Battle

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How Sprout Social's Real-Time Listening Revealed the True Winners of the Big Game's Ad Battle

November 5, 2025

The Big Game is more than a sporting event; it's a high-stakes arena where ad placements and creative campaigns vie for consumers' attention. Every year, brands invest heavily, banking on the cultural obsession and massive viewing audience to amplify their messages. But in an increasingly fragmented media landscape, what truly separates a high-performing campaign from an expensive miss?

For Sprout Social, the answer lies in the power of real-time social listening. By deploying their data and analytics capabilities during the Big Game, Sprout sought to uncover which brands truly won the social conversation and, more importantly, why. This approach turned a massive cultural moment into an actionable case study, offering reporters a unique, data-driven perspective on a story already dominating the news cycle.

We sat down with Abigail Hart, media relations manager at Sprout Social, to dig into the PRNEWS Platinum Award-winning campaign,showcasing the strategic value of social listening data.

What was the genesis of this campaign? Was tapping into the Big Game always a target for Sprout Social?

Like any strong PR program, we look for timely cultural moments to amplify our brand. The Big Game is one of the biggest for marketers-our core audience-because of the anticipation and coverage around major ad placements. We shared listening data with reporters to show which ads were driving the most conversation and what broader social trends emerged from the game. This gave reporters a unique perspective on a story they were already covering, resulting in meaningful coverage for Sprout and showcasing the power of our listening data.

What were some of the most surprising or meaningful findings from the social listening data that emerged during the campaign, and how did these contribute to its success?

Social listening consistently reveals authentic, often unexpected insights into how people engage with cultural moments. During the Big Game, we saw the highest-performing campaigns were those that extended beyond the broadcast, leveraging social media, influencers, teasers, and real-time engagement to maximize reach. This finding is meaningful because it reinforced a key insight for marketers: audiences today are decentralized, and a single channel isn't enough. The brands that won on game day were those that met audiences across multiple touchpoints, turning a single ad into an ongoing social experience with much higher ROI potential.

How do you strike the right balance between data and storytelling with this type of campaign?

As PR professionals, we know data is powerful, but only when it tells a story. Reporters look to data to uncover deeper meaning behind cultural moments, and our role is to frame that data in a way that's both relevant and newsworthy. When packaging insights, we think about how they'll actually be used in a story. For this campaign, pairing the volume of social conversation with sentiment data created compelling narratives around how brands showed up during the game. We also built a landing page to make our data visually clear and credible, which helped us earn more coverage than ever before. Sometimes, powerful data goes further when it's presented beautifully.

What were specific learnings from this campaign that can help brands investing in advertising campaigns around the Big Game understand what drives positive social engagement?

Unfortunately for marketers, there's no exact science to what will resonate positively with audiences. What we do know is that consumers value authenticity and realness from brands. Social listening helps marketers better understand their audiences, refine messaging ahead of time and monitor reactions in real time. It's a crucial tool for ensuring campaigns connect as intended or adapting quickly when they don't.

Do you plan to deploy a similar campaign with next year's Big Game? Do you see this style of campaign working in any other contexts?

Absolutely. We plan to build on this success for next year's Big Game, but we also use timely social listening data year-round. Whether it's providing insight into viral moments, like the Astronomer and American Eagle controversies, or analyzing how brands tap into trending TV shows, listening data helps us stay agile and relevant. It's become a cornerstone of our PR strategy, giving us and the media a real-time pulse on how people are reacting and engaging with brands.

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• Consumer & Lifestyle