Super Bowl Sunday is one of the Internet’s biggest days. But last year, online conversation was overwhelmingly negative. Coke wanted to change this. Our goal was to bring the positive Internet depicted in our Super Bowl spot to reality as a fun, interactive viewer experience.

Our strategy was to create a tool to offset online hate with happiness. We chose Twitter, a hotbed of game-day negativity, as the home for the experience. From our game-day war room, Coke guided the conversation and drove participation in real time across our social channels.

Our branded content was not product driven, which gave us permission to have a different kind of dialogue with consumers.

We worked with content partners and influencers with large followings to ensure our message was delivered in the most relevant and natural way possible. Whether it was Michael Sam and his publicized experience with online hate or Niche and their teen audience, each partner/producer shared their experience with Internet negativity in a way their fans could connect with.

Through our paid media partnership with Amobee, we made the often-ignorable banner placement an engaging disruption that drew attention to Coke’s message.

In terms of engagement, #MakeItHappy was Coke’s most successful Super Bowl digital activation:

• 291,000+ campaign mentions (89 percent positive)

• more social media mentions than rival (and halftime sponsor) Pepsi

• most mentioned brand during the Super Bowl

• Two billion Twitter impressions

• 26,000 negative tweets converted to happy images

• during the game, Twitter sentiment rose from 56 percent to 90 percent positive