The Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show was the most-watched 12 minutes in entertainment, averaging over 100M concurrent viewers globally. For Super Bowl LVI, Pepsi — the title sponsor from 2012 to 2022 — challenged TELUS Digital to create a companion digital experience that would give consumers unprecedented access to the event, putting Pepsi front and center on a day where brands fiercely compete for consumer mindshare.
- 500MPepsi bottles and cans printed with QR codes to promote the Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show app
- 103.4MViewers who tuned into the Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show
- 437KConcurrent sessions per second at peak load with 99.96% uptime
For one of the most anticipated performances of all time, we needed a partner who could dream up new ideas, have best-in-class expertise, and deliver a fail-proof product. TELUS Digital was the only choice.
The challenge: Turning 12 minutes of entertainment into six weeks of engagement
Starting with a blank sheet of paper and driving toward an immovable deadline, TELUS Digital led a series of ideation and rapid prototyping workshops to identify opportunities to engage fans through a multi-week campaign in the run-up to the big game.
Multidisciplinary teams brought rough sketches to life through high-fidelity mock-ups and breakthrough ideas, like a fully immersive, second-screen experience, rose to the top of the list.
Our approach: From ideation to App Store in record time
With the launch of the Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show app in December — only shortly after ideation began — Pepsi engaged fans weekly with more than 30 in-app content drops ranging from artist merch giveaways to exclusive interactive photo filters built in partnership with Snap.
On game day, an in-app exclusive — the Pepsi Ultra Pass — granted fans access to a groundbreaking second-screen viewing experience that brought fans on stage alongside legendary hip-hop performers. We engineered the app and back-end infrastructure to handle the astronomical load expected for one of the most-watched experiences of the year.
The results: Cutting through the noise and winning the brand battle
The experience was immersive, fun, and share-worthy — cementing Pepsi as the most talked about brand of Super Bowl LVI.
Pepsi drove the most conversation on Twitter during the Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show, crowning it Brand Bowl MVP.
Traditional press was equally impressed...
"On advertising’s biggest night, Pepsi showed up, and balled out." —AdAge
"Pepsi dominates nontraditional media exposure during Super Bowl." —CNBC
"Pepsi Becomes a Repeat MVP in Twitter's 2021 Brand Bowl." —Adweek
From day one, the level of collaboration between Pepsi and TELUS Digital has been best-in-class. In such an important project with countless variables, the TELUS Digital team has been a close and agile partner who helped shape and elevate how consumers experience the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show.
