America’s “big game” is not only one of the most important days on the country’s sporting calendar, but also for brands. Taking into consideration that during last year’s Super Bowl, marketers spent an estimated $5 million for every 30 seconds of ad time and you can almost suggest that the brand promotion supercedes the actual sports event.

While the ads during the game cost millions, the viewership they bring in for brands seems to be worth it. In the 2015 game, 114 million people tuned in. It’s important to note that 54 million of those viewers are women, so brands can target a wide range of audiences during this game.

Some 17.7% of adults claim that the ads are the most important part of the Super Bowl with only half the amount of people saying that they watch the Super Bowl for the actual game. In recent years, during January and February, social media has been identified as a vital component, adopting a huge role as part of the ensemble that is the big game.

Here’s how we saw the Super Bowl action off the field

The winners

Despite registering lower tweets than last year with other platforms also threatening to steal the show; ie Snapchat, Twitter remained the social media winner, retaining its status as the best social media companion to watch sport.

Watch how the @Broncos win over the @Panthers & #SB50 halftime show unfolded on Twitter. https://t.co/ei9VXwWhGhpic.twitter.com/6GaY2zlrZX

— Twitter Data (@TwitterData) February 8, 2016

Twitter total audience: 4.3B views of #SB50 Tweets on & off Twitter, based on 27m Tweets (inc. pre/post game) pic.twitter.com/ZZnGvHgwJH

— Twitter Data (@TwitterData) February 9, 2016

Interestingly, the brand that performed the best on Twitter was Esurance who didn’t even run an ad during the game. The insurance provider gambled by showing pregame and post-game ads and it worked out for them. Encouraging viewers to retweet them at the start of every commercial break for a chance to win US$250,000, Esurance was one of the big winners amongst the Twitterverse.

As a result #esurancesweepstakes was the most mentioned branded hashtag followed by #Pepsihalftime and Mountain Dew’s #puppymonkeybaby. To give Esurance’s figures some context, it had the most brand mentions with 835,000 with Doritos coming in with the second most mentions with just over 238,000.

Our Pass It On Sweeps is ready for kickoff! Check out our ad & RT for a chance to win #EsuranceSweepstakes #SB50https://t.co/8pdacnUtQA

— Esurance (@esurance) February 5, 2016

In saying that, mobile app Snapchat is gaining ground on the social media giant and continued to reflect this. This was Snapchat’s first official involvement in the big game as they rolled out two live stories with four advertisements.

One story was fan’s experience at the game while the other was a behind the scenes look at Levi’s stadium. Meanwhile, Gatorade’s sponsored lens was a first for the platform and generated over 100 million views, a record for the app.

The platform had high hopes for it’s features during the Super Bowl and if superstars like Lady Gaga are going to continue to share their experiences exclusively with Snapchat, don’t be surprised if it’s popularity continues to soar.

.@Snapchat is the best social network to follow #SB50, no doubt #LadyGaga#SocialMediapic.twitter.com/igpODcEVg4

— Nano (@fermoreno) February 7, 2016

In terms of television, Mobile carrier T Mobile were the big winners as they had three of the top ten most shared ads from the game according to Unruly, a video ad tech company.

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

The biggest winner of the night was Budweiser with Peyton Manning as their MVP. The beer giant received an estimated over $3 million worth of free advertising from Peyton Manning’s post game interview with CBS’ Tracy Wolfson.

The quarterback said that he was, “going to drink a lot of Budweiser tonight, Tracy, I promise you that” as the post game celebrations had begun. While “The Sheriff” was not paid to say this, it’s important to note that he has stake in two Anheuser-Busch distributors in Louisiana.

We didn’t know the shout out was coming either, but we’re glad it did. @Broncos celebrate like this tonight. #SB50 pic.twitter.com/ugGyt3Sg0z

— Budweiser (@Budweiser) February 8, 2016

The losers

Facebook, the world’s biggest social media platform, did not have the night that it expected. Last year they saw 65 million users create roughly 265 million posts. This year only 60 million people posted 200 million times, a 25% decrease in activity.

The social network recently launched Sports Stadium, an online sports hub where fans can discuss games as they happen. The Super Bowl was the first real test for the platform and, unfortunately for the social media giant, it proved it wasn’t fast enough to keep up with the game as it happened. In perhaps one of the biggest indictments for the platform, people even took to Twitter to talk about Facebook’s failed project.

I can’t find the sports stadium on Facebook for #SB50. 🙁

— Ken Yeung (@thekenyeung) February 8, 2016

7 minutes of game time into the second half and @facebook sports stadium is still all posts about halftime.

Gotta be better FB #smsports

— Todd M. (@ToddFMoore) February 8, 2016

In terms of TV, while it’s generally good for any company to get a over 100 million viewers on any advertisement, when there’s a $170,000 a second price tag on precious Super Bowl air time, you don’t want to disappoint. Unfortunately for some big brands, they underwhelmed with some evoking memories of a not-so-good time. Here’s a look at some of the ads from the big game that didn’t do so well.

Quicken Loans ran an ad for their new Rocket Mortgage App which unintentionally called back the days of the 2008 recession.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlRm6Y5iVfw

The timing of the consumerism-heavy advertisement is poor seeing that the United States is finally over the 2008 crisis that was sparked by shorting on mortgages and a spending society.

The ad seems to try to get Americans to make uninformed decisions again that led to the economic crisis. Not to mention, The Big Short, a film about the recession, is poised for a big night at the Oscars in a few weeks.

Mountain Dew introduced a new mascot, the PuppyMonkeyBaby for KickStart, their energy drink. The mascot was supposed to be reflective of the product.

The drink has Mountain Dew, Juice and Caffeine, “three awesome things” and the mascot is supposed to be three different awesome things, a puppy, money and a baby. It’s really more terrifying than it is memorable and probably kept younger viewers up at night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql7uY36-LwA

While it may have created a buzz on Twitter with #puppybabymonkey trending minutes before halftime, most of the 31,365 tweets were either negative or neutral according to Amobee.

Chief integrated marketing officer at Cohn and Wolfe also said the ad came across as “weird” – not a lasting impression you want to leave as a brand.

The Super Bowl always has big winner and losers, whether in the game or through the brand promotion, but it’s a classic case of any press is good press. It will be interesting to see the long-term effects that advertising during the big game will have for brands throughout the year.