Shazam mention, blackout at Super Bowl drives mobile engagement

Velti is a firm that runs advertising on mobile platforms like iOS and Android, and they were paying close attention during last Sunday's Super Bowl game to how and when mobile users were on their phones. The company has released a few tidbits about mobile usage during the big showdown, and they reveal quite a bit about when we picked up our phones during the game.

Velti says that while the Ravens may have won the game, Jack in the Box was the biggest win on the mobile side: The company's "Hot Mess" commercial (which featured a big plug for Shazam, who we spoke with about exactly this situation at CES) was the most active mobile engagement driver during the entire show. Viewers saw the bug, and immediately picked up their phones, presumably to either check out Shazam or use the app on the commercial spot (though it was only 30 seconds, so they had to hurry).

Mobile engagement also spiked, says Velti, during the brief blackout delay that the stadium experienced. In that same vein, the halftime show was actually the point at which viewers were least engaged in their phones, suggesting that Beyonce's song and dance distracted them back away from the smaller screens. And the game itself distracted viewers from their phones as well -- the relatively boring first half had more mobile usage, while the second half of the game, when the 49ers staged a comeback against the Ravens, saw mobile usage drop.

There's a lot of very interesting insight in there about exactly how mobile users make use of their second screen devices. The Jack in the Box / Shazam spike is no mistake, and we can likely expect to see even more moves like that in the future. Our mobile phones are nearly always with us these days, and other screens, including television, have lots of opportunities to use Apple's platforms for even more engagement.