The Super Bowl & Shazam

Shazam now identifies ads and uses its app to direct users into a branded interaction on television. Shazam was featured in one Super Bowl ad in 2010. "Last year, no one would bet their Super Bowl spot on a test. Fifty campaigns and millions of interactions later, up to a third of the spots will be Shazam-able this year," from Evan Krauss, evp of advertising at Shazam.

We don’t know which third of the ads will have Shazam. Client names will be available after the Super Bowl advertising embargo lifts on February 2. We do know that Shazam has been particularly active with auto and entertainment advertisers.

Shazam's first Super Bowl ad on Shazam for TV, where it’s app identifies a commercial by sound and directs users to more content, information, coupons or giveaways, was an experimental giveaway for Dockers. Roughly 20,000 users Shazam-ed the ad.

Often Shazam capabilities are indicated by a logo on the screen, but sometimes the ad’s creative works in a mention from the spot’s stars. Funny content and giveaways are the biggest drivers of engagement. Advertisers have also opted to share content like recipes or free song downloads with Shazam-ers.

In the last year, the company has had campaigns from companies like Old Navy, Bud Light and Unilever for more than 2 million interactions with consumers.

What is Shazam?
Shazam uses a mobile phone’s built-in microphone to gather a brief sample of music being played. An acoustic fingerprint is created based on the sample, and is compared against a central database for a match. If a match is found, information such as the artist, song title, and album are relayed back to the user.