The National Football League (NFL) Super Bowl is one of the biggest live events broadcast on American TV for two reasons: to watch the football game and to critique the ads. As an NFL sponsor whose run 19 Super Bowl ads throughout the years (many of them fan favorites), FedEx is expected to be a part of the big game. After a three year hiatus, FedEx wanted to find an innovative way to capture the excitement of the game and interest of viewers.While 1/3 of all Super Bowl ads were Shazam-able, FedEx sponsored the audio tagging of the actual game, allowing mobile users to unlock exclusive content and activating FedEx’s sponsorship in a personal, more engaging way. This was the first time an advertiser ever used Shazam to tag a live event.

FedEx allowed access to exclusive content when mobile users shazam’d the game. This included game stats, custom polls and an ad-rating feature. To keep within FedEx’s budget, the campaign’s promotion relied solely on owned and earned media. Shazam delivered press releases and relied heavily on their social media platforms to drive awareness and participation. FedEx leveraged their Twitter handle and tweeted about the opportunity to unlock content during the game via Shazam. Awareness was further amplified organically with FedEx followers retweeting the message.During the game FedEx provided a clear call to action on mobile devices: “While you’re watching the Super Bowl on the big screen, see our ad on a slightly smaller one.” This mobile banner drove users to FedEx’s mobile YouTube channel to view their ad, bringing viewers the complete Super Bowl experience- game content and ad critiquing. FedEx re-emerged as a Super Bowl advertiser in an innovative fashion and successfully engaged viewers beyond standard media impressions.

The New York Times lauded FedEx and Shazam for capturing the second screen during the game and MarketWatch confirmed this was the first in a trend of Shazam-enabled live events.

In a few hours, FedEx reached 216K+ unique viewers, nearly half of them engaging with the program more than once, showing strong engagement (331,340 total Shazams). Of these unique viewers, 6K+ engaged further by clicking onto FedEx owned properties to view their spot or download the FedEx application.

FedEx allowed access to exclusive content when mobile users “shazam’d” the game. This included game stats, custom polls and an ad-rating feature. To keep within the restrictions of FedEx’s budget, the campaign’s promotion relied solely on owned and earned media. Shazam delivered press releases and relied heavily on their social media platforms to drive awareness and participation. FedEx leveraged their Twitter handle and tweeted about the opportunity to unlock content during the game via Shazam. Awareness was further amplified organically as FedEx followers re-tweeted the message.During the game FedEx provided a clear call to action on mobile devices: “While you’re watching the Super Bowl on the big screen, see our ad on a slightly smaller one.” This mobile banner drove users to FedEx’s mobile YouTube channel to view their ad, bringing viewers the complete Super Bowl experience: game content and ad critiquing.

FedEx re-emerged as a Super Bowl advertiser in an innovative fashion and successfully engaged viewers beyond standard media impressions.

The New York Times lauded FedEx and Shazam for capturing the second screen during the game; The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch confirmed this was the first in a trend of Shazam-enabled live events.

In a few hours, FedEx reached 216K+ unique viewers, nearly half of them engaging with the program more than once, showing strong engagement (331,340 total Shazams). Of these unique viewers, 6K+ engaged further by clicking onto FedEx-owned properties to view their spot or download the FedEx application.