Tums' Super Bowl contest has fans rate their heartburn with blue dot emoji

Brief:

GlaxoSmithKline's Tums brand of antacids is making the blue dot emoji the focal point for a Twitter sweepstakes during the Super Bowl. To enter the contest, viewers can use the emoji to rate moments during the big game that give them the most heartburn, such as fumbles, food or commercial breaks, according to an announcement that includes a graphic saying, "This Is No Blue Dot Emoji. This Is A Tums."
The brand's @TUMSOfficial account will live tweet #Tumsworthy moments during the game following kickoff at 6:30 p.m. ET on Feb. 2. Twitter users can respond with the #TumsworthySweepstakes hashtag and their ratings of those moments, using multiple blue dot emoji to indicate their level of heartburn.
TV host and actor Anthony "Spice" Adams, singer Jessie James Decker, actor Adam Devine, YouTuber Sean Evans and meme accounts BeigeCardigan and Daquan will participate in the live tweets. Tums is offering a grand prize of $54,000 to one winner, while six others will receive free trips. Twitter users have five chances to enter — each quarter of the game and the halftime show — per the contest rules.

Insight:

By making the blue dot emoji the centerpiece of a sweepstakes during the Super Bowl, Tums aims to take ownership of a visual icon that's rarely used, according to the Unicode Consortium that sets global standards for digital characters including emoji. The campaign has the possibility of going viral as Twitter users rate heartburn-inducing moments during the big game and increase the likelihood that the #TumsworthySweepstakes shows up in the social network's list of trending topics.

Tums, which isn't among the brands spending north of $5 million to air a 30-second commercial during the big game, is deploying a counterprogramming strategy that aims to ambush the social media conversations and engage audiences who "second-screen" on mobile devices during the game. About 70% of U.S. adults regularly use another digital device while watching TV, with most of that usage happening on a smartphone, per researcher eMarketer.

The Tums sweepstakes is reminiscent of last year's campaign by Frank's RedHot hot sauce. Instead of running an expensive Super Bowl ad, Frank's hosted a contest that asked viewers to watch other brands' TV spots and to tweet the chili pepper emoji — the digital icon most associated with its product — during commercial breaks.

Similarly, Volvo last year competed for viewer attention in the lead-up to the Super Bowl. The carmaker, which wasn't an official sponsor of the game and didn't air a pricey commercial, created a website that challenged mobile users to keep their eyes on a video of a car for as long as possible. Three people who kept their eyes on the car the longest had the chance to win a Care by Volvo subscription to its S60 model.