Twitter aired its first-ever TV commercial during Game 1 of the World Series last night — and, not surprisingly, Twitter users had some opinions.
The 30-second spot, created by TBWA/ChiatDay, promoted the social network’s new Moments feature, which groups tweets about a single event or news story into a single multidimensional stream. Titled "Post Season," the ad was essentially a Twitter Moment about the playoffs presented in commercial form: a succession of user-posted videos, tweets, animations and memes provided highlights of the players and games so far. "A new way to get the best of Twitter," read on-screen copy.
Given the concept behind Moments, the World Series — which was trending on Twitter throughout the night — was a natural for a commercial to advertise it, said Anthony Noto, Twitter’s chief financial officer, in an interview with The Verge. More such commercials are coming, he said, all of which will focus on user interests in a similar fashion. The plan is to use "their interests as hooks, rather than Twitter itself as the hook," he said.
So, what did Twitter think?
At least one fan liked it better than the game, a record five-hour, 14-inning affair that was plagued by technical difficulties.
Just show that Twitter/Baseball commercial over and over again instead of this other garbage.
— John Baker (@manbearwolf) October 28, 2015
But enjoyment of the commercial didn’t always translate into enthusiasm for Moments.
Sorry @twitter even your commercial won't make me use the moments button.
— FrankenSean C (@fadedtimes) October 28, 2015One user proudly saw it as the social media platform tipping its cap to diehard fans.
That Twitter commercial was literally a commercial for #baseballtwitter. Guys, we made it we are famous.
— Cat Garcia (@TheBaseballGirl) October 28, 2015
FOX, which is airing all World Series games this year, had a tough night, repeatedly losing the video from the stadium and having to pause its coverage. Perhaps that would show up in the next Moments commercial?
Honest Twitter commercial would just show a series of lame jokes about the Fox outage and complaints about Joe Buck.
— hey look i changed m (@WillOremus) October 28, 2015
Ratings for Game 1 of the series were up by 31% from the same match a year ago, and drew a 10.5/18 in Nielsen metered market results, despite the game’s marathon duration.