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Bud Light / HBO #ForTheThrone Ad — Which Brand Gained the Most?

Bud Light / HBO #ForTheThrone Ad — Which Brand Gained the Most?

“Dilly Dilly!” Above: Bud Light’s Bud Knight mascot (RIP? Spoilers?)

We are still basking in the afterglow of Super Bowl LIII, and the accompanying hubbub. Our Super Bowl fevers broken, and our bodies and brains fully restored to our 98.6 °F status quo, we can now ably analyze all that unfolded last Sunday with steely eyes and impartial hearts.

We here have returned to the passion that is dealing with cold, hard statistics. Thanks to the powerful abilities of the StatSocial audience analysis tool, we have insights galore surrounding much of what transpired before the eyes of the world this past weekend.

Join us now for our first entry sharing just a hint of what we’ve learned about all of it.

Winter Arrived, As Promised. So Now What?

Of the Super Bowl Sunday happenings that have folks abuzz this week, few surpass the sight of HBO’s beloved ‘Game of Thrones’ crashing in, and wreaking havoc, on Bud Light’s highly quoted and viral “Dilly Dilly” ad campaign.

An integrated campaign of this nature provides for us a perfect opportunity to highlight the unique power of StatSocial, even if we’re only revealing the tip of our vast mountain of insights.

If you’ve not yet had the opportunity to see the spot, you can check it out here (or you can check out an extended version — courtesy of the official ‘Game of Thrones’ YouTube channel — by clicking here):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoLiRI5swVk

Dilly Dilly?

In August of 2017, a Bud Light spot entitled “Banquet” was unveiled to the world.

Conceived by the ad agency Wieden+Kennedy, the campaign’s medieval setting, and timing of the first commercial’s debut, were chosen deliberately to complement and coincide with the finale of ‘Game of Thrones’’ seventh season.

The campaign really caught on with the public, with its “Dilly Dilly!” catchphrase inspiring a million memes, and finding itself incorporated into countless wedding speeches.

For the Super Bowl LIIIJoust” spot HBO, and their agency Droga5, were brought in as necessary collaborators.

Now, to Some StatSocial Business

The below graphic provides top line statistics, revealing the audience segments with whom the #ForTheThrone / “Joust” spot would certainly have resonated most strongly.

We set about calculating the reported affinities by analyzing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of American ‘Game of Thrones’ fans, Bud Light drinkers, and HBO viewers.

37.71% of Bud Light Drinkers are NFL fans. 20.79% of HBO Viewers are NFL fans. 3.75% of Bud Light Drinkers are Game of Thrones fans. 4.58% of Bud Light Drinkers are HBO viewers.

For basic context, we first established what percentage of each audience is made up of NFL fans. From there we discovered that very nearly 38% of Bud Light’s drinkers are fans of the NFL. As we discussed in an entry posted last week, the brand is the league’s official beer sponsor, and will be for some years to come. As such, we imagine this statistic alone would be pleasing to both league and brand.

Over one-fifth of HBO’s audience are fans of the NFL. This seems beyond reasonable when you consider that the network and the league have been working together, on one program or another, for over 30 years.

Digging down a layer into, specifically, the ‘Game of Thrones’ faithful, a not insignificant 8.5% are NFL fans.

That established, we then set out to determine to what degrees Bud Light’s drinkers were viewers of the program and the network.

A very reasonable proportion of Bud Light’s sizable audience — 4.58% to be exact — are fond of the HBO service. Suggesting that ‘Thrones’ is something of a jewel in the pay TV giant’s crown (if you’ll forgive our metaphors), 3.75% of Bud Light’s greatest enthusiasts are also fans of ‘Thrones.’

As said above, these are only the tiniest hints at the insights we have to offer. Before drawing any definitive conclusions some deeper digging would be advisable. Based on this rather telling data, however, it seems that the vast majority of Bud Light’s HBO subscribing fans may not be in it solely for the ‘Thrones,’ but they do love those ‘Thrones’ all the same.

Summary of the “Joust” Commercial

If you’ve not yet seen the clip, or have not yet heard tell, in brief, it goes like this:

The Bud Knight — a fixture of the “Dilly Dilly”-verse — is shown about to start a jousting match. All is in keeping with the silly and comical tone viewers would expect from these ads. Suddenly, though, things turn ominous. As the joust begins and the horses charge, the Bud Knight is knocked off of his steed and killed. We suddenly see that the opposing knight is none other than ‘Game of Thrones’ character, The Mountain (played here by ‘GoT’’s own Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson). Suddenly, ‘Thrones’’ familiar theme music begins to play as we see a massive, menacing dragon fly overhead. As the spot nears its ending, we see the beast setting ablaze all within Bud Light’s medieval continuity. Words then appear on screen announcing, “Game of Thrones — The Final Season,” then we are greeted by the hashtag “#ForTheThrone,” and finally “HBO — April 14.”

It’s a brilliant commercial. It subverts expected tropes with the utterly unforeseeable demise of a central character — which is pulled right from George R.R. Martin’s storytelling rulebook — and the result is a beautifully executed piece of cobranding. The cultural touchstone that the commercials had initially set out to parody quite literally comes galloping in to lay waste to the whole campaign. By commercial’s end, ‘Game of Thrones’ emerges victorious and wins the coveted and highly valued Super Bowl airtime.

Take a Sniff Around

We did a bunch of football related entries the past couple of weeks, and we invite you head over to the greater StatSocial blog here to check them out. While there, you can also peruse the tons of other entries, offering all kinds of insights, studies, and deep dives to better acquaint you with the capabilities of StatSocial.

Throughout the blog are many examples of the sorts of insights that can only be gained with StatSocial.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

To learn more or request a demo, click here.

SB LIII: T-Mobile,  Taco Bell & Lyft — What Big Data Can Tell Us

SB LIII: T-Mobile, Taco Bell & Lyft — What Big Data Can Tell Us

The week following Super Bowl LIII is drawing to a close, but there’s still much to discuss. Those who’ve been visiting the StatSocial blog over the past few weeks have been enjoying the many insights shared here about every NFL team’s biggest fans.

We considered the most dedicated members of each NFL squad’s audience through an array of lenses. We looked at political leanings, how friendly and emotional each team’s fans are, pizza chain and cola preferences, and varying degrees of Disney World devotion.

We even started a conversation about Super Bowl commercials.

“Super Bowl Commercials,” You Say?

The StatSocial tool provides a massive variety of accurate, unique, and actionable insights regarding any audience you can imagine. The advertisements aired during Super Bowl LIII’s telecast featured some inspired cobranding.

The StatSocial platform guides brands, companies, and marketers to wise and fully informed choices. StatSocial is an especially powerful advisor to those seeking mutually beneficial integrated marketing opportunities, including (perhaps especially) those that may not seem so obvious on their faces.

Internationally known communications brand, T-Mobile, featured not one, but two, collaborators in their Super Bowl LIII customer appreciation promotion. Multiple spots that aired during the game announced that T-Mobile’s customers had some free stuff coming to them. Why? Well, to quote the company directly, “just because.”

The Partnerships

One enticement promised through this campaign is a free ride via on-demand car service, Lyft.

The other treat is free tacos, every Tuesday. These foodstuffs come courtesy of Taco Bell.

All in all, these perks are nothing to sneeze at.

The details can be found via posts on T-Mobile’s website, here and here.

Regarding the Taco Bell partnership, they shared this:

“T-Mobile and Taco Bell felt like natural brand friends, and we were just waiting for the perfect opportunity to make a partnership come to life, in a way that befits what our fans expect from us both. No question this collaboration in the Super Bowl was that perfect opportunity,” said Marisa Thalberg, Global Chief Brand Officer, Taco Bell Corp. “We cannot wait to give T-Mobile Tuesday customers and Taco Bell fans the chance to access a little ‘Taco Bell’ magic, any day of the week.”

T-Mobile’s CEO, John Legere, added these spunky words regarding the Lyft collaboration:

“While Verizon and AT&T have been taking their customers for a ride for years, we’re all about giving ours a ride on us. The best customers in wireless deserve a Lyft. It’s a massive ‘Thank You’ just for being with us. For free. For real.”

“So StatSocial You Say?”

We are not here to editorialize. This is also not Monday morning quarterbacking (or whatever day of the week it is you’re reading this), as these are statistics.

This is what the numbers were going into Sunday’s game. We’re providing them as a tiny sampling of what can be learned from StatSocial.

As is being concluded with increasing frequency, social media audience analysis is far more reliable than traditional research for learning public opinion(s), and predicting public behaviors. When such analysis has been calculated by matching social media data with the vast wealth of more granular, distinctive, and nuanced audience insights available throughout cyberspace — as StatSocial does with an accuracy unmatched by any other platform — there are no numbers of surveys or focus groups that can possibly tell you so much.

The below graphic shows what percentage of T-Mobile users also eat Taco Bell and/or also use Lyft. The “index score” on the far right represents the degree to which these numbers exceed, fall short of, or are in keeping with the baseline. For this, we’ve used the average American social media audience for that context.

5.9% of T-Mobile users also use Lyft, which exceeds the U.S. average by a little over 7 times. 7.3% of Lyft users use T-Mobile. which exceeds the U.S. average by nearly 7 1/10 times.

Lyft

The above shows us that there is already a quite healthy cross-section of users between T-Mobile and Lyft. The proportion of T-Mobile users who employ Lyft’s services exceed the number of Lyft users found among the average U.S. social media audience by a hair over seven times. The number of Lyft users who use T-Mobile exceed the average by even a touch more, approaching seven-and-one-tenth times.

As this is ostensibly a customer appreciation promotion, right off the bat there is a real suggestion of that mission realistically being accomplished. This is something a not insignificant portion of the immediately targeted audience would want. As probably goes without noting— while significant statistically — 5.9% and 7.3% each still leave plenty of room for growth.

There are so many additional insights that StatSocial’s reporting provides that would be considered before taking action, but based on these insights, for this quick taste here, it appears that this partnership would likely be a positive one for both parties.

Taco Bell

The intersection of T-Mobile users and Taco Bell diners is not as profound as what’s shown above. This suggests strong potential gains for both partners, particularly as this aspect of the campaign is more robust than than the Lyft promotion. Here, T-Mobile users are being offered a strong incentive to enter Taco Bell restaurants every Tuesday for free food.

Free grub alone has an irresistible pull, and its provision is likely to give rise to goodwill. Taco Bell, of course, has an opportunity to convert a potentially substantial quantity of T-Mobile users into becoming lovers of their food.

Based on these numbers it seems less likely that a profound number of Taco Bell devotees would jump ship on their mobile provider and switch to T-Mobile for some free tacos. Diving deeper into our insights, though, will paint an ever-increasingly nuanced picture of this audience.

What Else Could Be Learned?

To those on the market for a new mobile provider, the association of the T-Mobile brand with a customer appreciation campaign, touted from the greatest pulpit available via American mass media (Super Bowl commercials) could plant the seeds of positive association, even among those unable to benefit from the Super Bowl promotion directly.

The same would also be true of Lyft and Taco Bell.

This much is known, of course, but who will be watching? Who will be paying the most attention to the broadcast? What proportion of that segment will be the most receptive to your messaging?

StatSocials insights can tell you what the fast food and/or car service and/or mobile communications preferences are of both your audience, and those audiences of your competitors. You can know to what degree your audience, and those of your competitors — and any other audiences whose attentions, for whatever reasons, you’d like to attract — are NFL fans, and what proportions of those audiences are fans of each team.

You can also know the ages, incomes, political leanings, favorite TV shows, podcasts, brands of soap, casinos, and… Well, you get the idea.

In short: What can be gained is invaluable wisdom into retaining the audience you already have, and attracting the audience(s) you desire.

Take a Sniff Around

We did a bunch of football related entries the past couple of weeks, and we invite you head over to the greater StatSocial blog here to check them out. While there you can also peruse the tons of other entries, offering all kinds of insights, studies, and deep dives to better acquaint you with the capabilities of StatSocial.

Throughout the blog are many examples of the sorts of insights that can only be gained with StatSocial.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

To learn more or request a demo, click here.

(BIG DATA) Do NFL fans even like the Super Bowl Halftime Performers?

(BIG DATA) Do NFL fans even like the Super Bowl Halftime Performers?

We’ve calculated what portion of every NFL team’s audience is fans of Maroon 5, Travis Scott, and Big Boi. Hint: In the case of the latter two, hometown loyalty counts for a lot. Not so much with the nominal headliner, though.


The big day is truly just about upon us. Super Bowl LIII is soon to be taking place (or perhaps has occurred by the time you’re reading this). We hope you’ve been keeping up with our ever-mounting excitement, made manifest through our public application of the powerful and unfailingly insightful StatSocial audience analysis tool. We’ve been digging into the varying affinities, hobbies, preferences, and predilections of every NFL team’s fans.

Let’s Talk About Halftime Shows!

His Late Royal Badness at Super Bowl XLI

The Super Bowl has been a TV ratings juggernaut since very early in its history. Until the early-90s, though, two things about the event were largely accepted as facts: 1) For all the hoopla, the game itself would invariably be boring, and 2) the halftime show would be loud, flashy, expensive, and… mostly ignored.

Super Bowl XXV ushered in the era of good Super Bowl games. In a nail-biting, final seconds finale, Buffalo Bills’ placekicker, Scott Norwood, missed a very-nearly game-winning field goal. The play will forever be known in NFL lore as “Wide Right.” As a result, the New York Giants emerged victorious by a single point.

Good football was now on the Super Bowl table as a possibility. Halftime shows continued to be regarded as a lost cause, though. These hokey, bloated productions always had an overarching theme such as ‘World of Children’s Dreams’ and ‘Salute to Superstars of Silver Screen.’

In 1992, the theme of Super Bowl XXVI’s halftime show was ‘Winter Magic.’ It was a bit of hype for that year’s Winter Olympics in France, of which the broadcasting network, CBS, was to begin airing exclusive U.S. coverage a little over a week after the big game.

That year, the then still fledgling FOX network counter-programmed the Super Bowl’s halftime with a live episode of its critically acclaimed and award-winning sketch comedy show, ‘In Living Color’ (the show that launched the careers of numerous Wayans siblings, as well as Jamie Foxx, Jim Carrey, Jennifer Lopez, Rosie Perez, and David Alan Grier). This stunt not only netted FOX and ‘In Living Color’ tons of press, it also pulled in tons of viewers. 22 million, to be exact. Compared to the 120,000,000 who tuned into the game, only a drop in the bucket. All the same, huge numbers for any regular network show. This was not the sort of thing that was going to go ignored.

In a bid for relevancy and viewer retention, the following year’s Super Bowl XXVII had the halftime theme of… Well, there was no theme. They booked Michael Jackson. ‘Nuff said.

From there, the halftime shows took a few years of fits and starts to fully shake many of the corny trappings of spectacles past. With each passing Super Bowl, however, the proceedings ever-increasingly incorporated rock, pop, and country acts of whom members of the public born after World War II were actually fans.

McCartney, The Stones, Prince, Tom Petty, Springsteen, Aerosmith, Travis Tritt, Madonna, Clint Black, Britney Spears, and many others have, since the dawn of the halftime renaissance, done their Super Bowl duty. Whatever their demographic appeal or age, they are all quite a lot hipper than Up With People.

Nice History Lesson, Where Are the Stats?!

That leads us to this year. The featured performer is the rock band Maroon 5. The band’s fame has gotten a goose from frontman Adam Levine’s other gig as a judge on NBC’s hit singing competition show, ‘The Voice.’

The band is popular, whatever the reason. In an era where selling a million is a legitimate accomplishment, their 2017 release, ‘Red Pill Blues,’ reached that benchmark. Their 2014 album, ‘V,’ sold three-million copies.

Some of the controversies swirling around the league of late (to which we’ve made reference here and here) found booking acts for this year’s halftime a bit challenging. After a fair amount of speculation and drama, it has shaken out that the enormously popular Houston-based rapper, Travis Scott, will be joining Maroon 5 in the center ring. Also, in tribute to the game’s host city of Atlanta, rapper Big Boi — one half of superstar 90s/00s hip-hop duo, Outkast, and Atlanta music legend — will be joining in on the festivities.

So, To Make This a StatSocial Thing

We put the StatSocial audience analysis tool to work, this time out, to see what each of the NFL’s teams’ fans thought of the three acts slated to appear mid-game. Using the enormous amount of data incorporated in our analysis, we were able to calculate what percentage of each squad’s devotees are also fans of each act.

Let’s start with Maroon 5, who incidentally originate from Los Angeles.

2.91% of the Green Bay Packers’ fans are also fans of Maroon 5. 0.90% of the Atlanta Falcons’ fans are fans for Maroon 5.

It would seem football fans in the city hosting the Big Game are not the biggest fans of the band. Indeed, of all the teams’ audiences, the Falcons’ fans show the smallest degree of enthusiasm for Mr. Levine and his (presumably 4?) bandmates.

Luckily, the stadium is bound to be filled with fans of the two teams playing, and the Patriots can boast of having the largest quantity of Maroon 5 fans (Maroonies?) among their audience.

Of possible interest as we proceed, they don’t find over-abundant favor from fans of either of their current hometown teams.

Let us move on…

3.09% of the Green Bay Packers’ fans are also fans of Travis Scott. 0.81% of the Ne York Jets’ fans are fans of Travis Scott.

Houstonian Travis Scott finds the most love from the fans of his hometown’s Texans. Much as love from the Pats fans may work in Maroon 5’s favor, at least in Mercedes-Benz Stadium where fans of the two competing teams are sure to be present, Travis may find a number of his fans already in attendance. It seems a reasonable proportion of Rams fans dig his music.

Given that the current NFL fan base and that of Travis Scott don’t overlap to the extent you might find with fans of other sports, it’s a testament to just how popular he is that his fans can be found to notable degrees within the audiences of a great many teams.

Not so much fans of New York’s Jets, however.

Now, unsubstantiated rumors are flying that Scott will seize the opportunity of this massive event to propose to his girlfriend — reality TV star, model, and social media mega-influencer, Kylie Jenner. The league is not big on halftime show surprises (cough-wardrobemalfunction-cough), so if this is the case it will likely have been cleared, rehearsed, and Ms. Jenner’s response is already known. In other words, we don’t suspect such a thing is likely to happen.

And last, but most assuredly not least…

2.51% of the Atlanta Falcons’ fans are also fans of Big Boi. 0.10% of the New England Patriots’ fans are also fans of Big Boi.

Root, Root, Root for the Home team

Sworn Falcons fanatic, Antwan “Big Boi” Patton appears on ‘ESPN First Take’ in advance of the 2016–2017 NFC Championship game which found the Falcons facing the Green Bay Packers and emerging victorious.

Antwan “Big Boi” Patton is a proud Atlantan, and the citizens of that great city love Big Boi back. All parties involved love the Atlanta Falcons. It’s unsurprising then — especially given what even previous entries in this series have suggested about the home town affinities of Atlanta’s citizens — that of all fans of all the NFL teams, it is those who root for the Falcons who overwhelmingly are also the greatest fans of Big Boi.

You can check out Big Boi, on ‘ESPN First Take’ as he discusses the Falcons’ chances of winning the NFC Championship in January of 2017, by clicking here (it’s a 22 minute show, so if you have a moment). As it turns out their chances were pretty good, as they roundly trounced the Packers, 44 to 21.

Big Boi does not find a ton of admirers, in general, among the fans of the league’s other 31 squads. He particularly, though, gets no love from Pats fans. This even despite their victory over Big Boi’s beloved Falcons in Super Bowl LI. Mercedes-Benz Stadium on February 3, 2019 could be a tough room.

We sure hope some Atlantans get tickets to the Big Game, Big Boi deserves some love from the stands.

Bookmark This Page

We’ve got loads of cool entries in the pipeline, sports related and way beyond.

Head over to the StatSocial blog here, and check out the other entries in this series, plus the loads of other insights, studies, and deep dives we’ve posted.

Throughout the blog are many examples of the sorts of things that only StatSocial can tell you, particularly with such nuance and accuracy.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

To learn more or request a demo, click here.

NFL Fans Favorite Pizza Chain — Pizza Hut vs. Domino’s vs. Papa John’s  Little Caesars

NFL Fans Favorite Pizza Chain — Pizza Hut vs. Domino’s vs. Papa John’s Little Caesars

Kansas City is Pizza Hut Country, and the Chiefs’ fans know it. Patriots fans and Rams fans alike love Domino’s. Little Caesars performs best in Detroit while Papa John’s has a lot of fans in Indy and DC.

Super Bowl LIII, featuring the (so-frequently featured in the postseason) New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams, is happening so soon we can taste it. As occurs in mouths from Dorchester to Santa Monica on a daily basis, but will be taking place to an inordinate degree on Super Sunday 2019, is the tasting of pizza. We can all taste that, no matter the time of year. Are we right, or are we right?

For the past couple of weeks we’ve been applying the sharp and powerful StatSocial audience analysis tool to the important work of learning all sorts of things about every NFL team’s fans. We’ve uncovered which team’s fans are most emotional, most (or least) Millennial, and we dug into their preferences when it comes to pizza’s most perfect pairing — provided you’re over 21-years of age — good ol’ brewskis. You can check out all the entries we’ve done, and will do, in this series at the StatSocial blog here.

“Hey pizza! It’s great! Let’s dig in!”

-Dee Dee Ramone, ‘Rock and Roll High School’

You scream, I scream, we all scream for pizza. The lack of a rhyme doesn’t make this fact any less true.

Setting aside our New York elitism, and loyalty to the literal hundreds upon hundreds of genuinely mind-blowing mom ’n’ pop pizza joints that can be found virtually every few blocks within our city (and many others, we know that other cities have great pizza too… or at least we’ve been told as much), today we focus on our great nation’s major pizza chains: Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, and Little Caesars.

The below graphic reflects our calculations after looking at hundreds of thousands of each NFL team’s fans who are also fans of one of the four pizza chains in question. With those fans identified, we were able to determine the proportions of each chain’s admirers dwelling within each team’s fan base.

Observe….

Click to Enlarge. 45.10% of the Kansas City Chiefs’ fans who are fans of one of the four chains in this study prefer Pizza Hut. 3.10% of those same Chiefs fans dine on Little Caesars. 46.40% of the Patriots fans analyzed in this study prefer Domino’s. 4.60% favor Little Caesars.

It’s close, but Pizza Hut is the victor here. Domino’s is not at all far behind, though. Papa John’s is in the game, but is still comfortably our bronze medalist.

Little Caesars is coming up the rear. The chain does, however, get a pronounced regional boost. Founded in the Detroit metropolitan area’s Garden City, Michigan, the Lions find the largest proportion of Little Caesars admirers among their fans.

Of course, Domino’s pizza was founded in the Detroit suburb of Ypsilanti, Michigan, and it finds an even larger proportion of diners among the Lions fans. A proportion, however, only a smidge larger than that which grooves on Wichita, Kansas’ Pizza Hut. Home team pride is real, but at the end of the day, the heart (and the stomach) wants what it wants.

While speaking of Kansas and the international pizza chain to which it did give birth, we find the team with the largest proportion of Hut-worshipers located right over the border from the Jayhawk State, in the Show Me State. Fans of the Chiefs reside in both states, of course, and it would seem a heck of a coincidence if the Pizza Hut chain’s geographic origins weren’t something of a factor here.

Where Domino’s is kicking the most butt — if you’ll pardon our French — is within the region of our beautiful country called New England. Fans of the Patriots love Domino’s while admiring their local foliage, and they adore it while digging their cars out from under three feet of snow for the 20th time that year. Oh, and also while celebrating their team’s frequent divisional, conference, and yes even league championship victories.

If you want to unnerve your Super Bowl pizza party, find a creepy toy like this, and plop it right in the middle of one of the pies you’re serving. Things will have to be a couple of hours, and a few rounds of beer, in before that pizza is getting touched.

Bookmark This Page

We’re not through here yet.

We’ll be visiting even more subjects of this general nature — all highlighting the rich and varied affinities of each NFL team’s fans — in these last few days in the run up to Super Bowl LIII.

And check out the written matter in the footer, and reach out to us if you have any questions or would like to see much, much more.

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You can snoop around the greater StatSocial Insights blog by clicking here.

Do NFL Fans Prefer Coke or Pepsi?

Do NFL Fans Prefer Coke or Pepsi?

Hometown pride, perhaps, finds the Falcons’ fans most partial to Coke. Buffalo Bills’ enthusiasts, on the other hand, exhibit the strongest fondness for Pepsi.


Super Bowl LIII is coming down fast. The New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams will be descending upon Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium with an eye on hoisting the Vince Lombardi Trophy upon their burly shoulders, and announcing to the world their plans to go to Disney World.

In the ever ramping up anticipation, we are continuing with our series of blog entries applying the might and diversity of the StatSocial audience analysis tool to the fan bases of every NFL team. While demonstrating only a peek into StatSocial’s capabilities, it has enabled us to consider the nation’s most dedicated football fans from a number of different perspectives. After reading this entry, head on over to the greater StatSocial blog for more.

This One Here Is a Biggie


The Hatfields and the McCoys, Ali and Frazier, the Yankees and the Red Sox, ‘The Munsters’ and the ‘Addams Family.’ In our world, there have been precious few rivalries that have even begun to approach that which has raged for æons between Coke and Pepsi.

If cola weren’t so awesome, it would almost seem frivolous. Cola, alas, is that awesome, and so this is some quite serious business.

Proportion of Coke vs. Pepsi Drinkers Among Each NFL Team’s Fans

With the below graphic, we show the results of our analysis. We’ve looked at hundreds of thousands of NFL fans, identifying all of those who drink Coke or Pepsi. From there, we’ve calculated preferences on a team-by-team basis. With this, we can see which cola is preferred — with those who drink cola — among each team’s fans.


Atlanta, Atlanta, That Toddlin’ Town

A rendering of what was The Coca-Cola building in Atlanta. The soft drink manufacturer’s home from 1909 to 1920.

By a rather sizable margin, the Falcons find themselves with the largest percentage of Coke drinkers in their midst. Atlanta is known for a lot of things, and has been home to its fair share of industry and successful businesses. Nothing to originate from Atlanta, however, has proved more enduring and iconic than their delicious, carbonated soft drink (sorry Ted Turner). Arguably, it’s the most famous American brand in the world. Top five, surely.

In a move roughly akin to Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra bringing their beef with King Ghidorah to the streets of Manhattan, Coke and Pepsi have duked it out globally, trying to win over the tastebuds of all the planet’s inhabitants.

Shuffle Off to Buffalo, For Some Pepsi and Wings


While this sweet and immensely popular drink was initially developed in North Carolina, the Panthers’ audience seems to reside cozily in Coca-Cola country.

Pepsi is now headquartered in Westchester County, New York. While in the same state, it is highly unlikely that geography is any sort of a factor in the popular soft drink finding the largest proportion of admirers among the fans of the Buffalo Bills. Buffalo, you see, is a good 400 miles from Pepsi HQ.

Pepsi shares a logo color-scheme with the Bills, which is coincidental, but does make for Pepsi’s branding integrating niftily into Bills related ephemera. Pepsi is also, not for nothing, the official soft drink of the Buffalo Bills.

I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing

Perhaps now would not be the greatest time to point out that — while they do so to the smallest degree of all the team’s fan bases — Bills fans on the whole do prefer Coca-Cola as well.

The parent corporations of each American soft drink perennial manages a rich and diverse portfolio of food and beverage brands. The profitability of each company, on the whole, is not quite so easily summed up, and will vary from year to year. When it comes to the delicious, brown and bubbly drinks upon which these companies have built their empires, though, the NFL’s fans rather decidedly prefer Coca-Cola.

And with that…

(If you have “Do Not Track” enabled on your browser, you can see the below by clicking-through here.)

Bookmark This Page

We’ll be visiting numerous subjects of this general nature — all highlighting the rich and varied affinities of each NFL team’s fans — in the days running up to Super Bowl LIII.

And check out the written matter in the footer, and reach out to us if you have any questions or would like to see much, much more.

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