Who won the social Super Bowl?

Coca-Cola, Budweiser and Always tugged at our emotional strings during this season’s Super Bowl advertising bonanza, which saw a discernible shift away from humour in what has become America’s biggest TV event.

More than 28m tweets were sent out using game-related hashtags such as “#SuperBowl” and “#SB49”.

With total TV ad spend in excess of $300m – brands needed to perform well to make returns on a ludicrous ad slots – which saw companies paying up to a record $4.5 million for 30 seconds during the championship game on Comcast Corp’s NBC network.

Budweiser concentrated on fluffy, adorable cuteness to get viewers tweeting, while Coca-Cola’s #MakeItHappy spot focused on internet bullying to stimulate social activity.

Always rehashed its already popular #LikeAGirl campaign which aims to dismantle stereotypes contributing to low self-esteem.

The three brands stood out among more than 70 commercials for their share of social activity – with Coke’s #MakeItHappy hashtag still trending on Twitter.

Budweiser’s hotly anticipated puppy-horse ad scored viral success before the main kick-off, watched nearly 42 million times ahead of the game and topped rankings by iSpot, which tracks online views and social media chatter.

Elsewhere, Nationwide Insurance sparked a social media backlash with an ad that many felt was too extreme and out of place.

The ad featured a young boy that would never grow up because he died in an accident in an advert designed to highlight preventable child injuries.

“Many people felt it was just the wrong time for a message like that,” said Tim Calkins, marketing professor at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, which runs an annual review of Super Bowl ads. “It was a very disturbing piece of advertising.”