We all witnessed the Chobani bear get aggro in his quest for yogurt, and watched Arnold play ping pong in shorts and a wig in that $3 million Bud Light spot. But the real advertising opportunity of Super Bowl XLVIII was brands nailing down the big win on social media. Everyone from Pizza Hut to M&Ms was trying for that timely tweet with viral potential.

Some brands like Cinnabon played it safe, harping on Oreo’s snappy “You can still dunk in the dark” tweet from Super Bowl 2013. But that was old news, and a stale approach. The real winner of Super Bowl XLVIII was the DiGiorno Pizza Twitter feed. To start things off, let’s take a look at DiGiorno’s hysterical live tweeting of the Super Bowl—the pizza chain was straight wildin':

Then there was M&Ms, which put out a reenactment of the touchdown. This was another win, even if it was a Vine.

Domino’s attempt at winning Super Bowl social media was pretty cheesy, but still kind of funny.

From the get-go, we had high hopes for the Budweiser Puppy. The little dude came out the gates a hero with a gibberish tweet from the Bud account.

But the Bud Pup evolved into a huge troll trying to at message celebrities and piggyback on other people’s jokes. Here’s an example of trying way too hard for a viral smash:

In the category of complete failures, there was Pizza Hut’s weak pun accompanied by a straight-up lie. Both teams CAN NOT WIN.

Then there was the biggest failure of Super Bowl XLVIII, which was Oreo’s fatal attempt to resurrect the blackout Tweet:

So, what did we learn from this little recap? If you’re manning a big food brand’s Twitter, you best bring your A-game to the Super Bowl. Now, please, enjoy this GIF of the 66-year-old former Governor of California, courtesy of Bud Light.

arnold