Despite not actually airing a commercial during the Super Bowl on Sunday, Esurance had an extraordinarily successful night, thanks to its #EsuranceSave30 sweepstakes on Twitter.
The company snagged the first ad slot after the game, and vowed to give away the difference in price—it went for $1.5 million less than an in-game slot—to one lucky viewer who tweeted the hashtag #EsuranceSave30 within 36 hours after the ad aired.
John Krasinski, the brand's spokesman, helped to announce the winner Wednesday night on Jimmy Kimmel Live. You can see that video below. But also check out the social stats from the campaign, provided by Esurance agency Leo Burnett:
• 5.4 million uses of the #EsuranceSave30 hashtag
• More than 200,000 entries within the first minute of the Esurance commercial airing
• 1.4 million hashtag uses in the first hour and 4.5 million in the first 24 hours
• 2.6 billion social impressions on Twitter
• 332,000 views of the Esurance commercial on YouTube
• 261,000 new followers on the official Esurance Twitter account—an increase of nearly 3,000 percent
• A 12x spike in visits to the Esurance website in the first hours of the sweepstakes
Safe to say it was a successful stunt. Cue the copycats.