Sunday’s game was one of epic proportions with over 113.7 million people watching, a mind blowing comeback, and the first overtime in Super Bowl history. Many headlines this week will focus on recapping game stats, rating the best ads, and reviews of GaGa’s halftime performance but there was one component that stole the show on sport’s biggest stage:  video technology.

Live Video Commercials

There is only one way to ensure your $5 Million dollar ad investment doesn’t get leaked prior to the game: leverage live video ads. Live streaming as an ad strategy is more engaging because it can be viewed as an extension of the programming, making viewers more likely to stay tuned. Snickers and Hyundai were the fearless brands that mobilized social media’s latest trend and embraced the spontaneity of live streaming video. Before the game started, Snickers hosted a 36-hour stream on Facebook Live featuring celebrities and social media influencers to help create buzz. The commercial was shot and broadcasted during the third quarter as Star Wars actor Adam Driver “accidentally” trips and causes the entire set to collapse. The punchline was  “you mess up Super Bowl commercials because you’re hungry” but the ad seemed to miss the mark, leaving many viewers confused.

Hyundai closed the curtains of Super Bowl LI with a live commercial that was as emotional as the ending of the game itself. In order to stream such a powerful commercial, Hyundai flew to a military base in Poland and gave four soldiers an opportunity of a lifetime: fully immersive 360° viewing pod that transported them to NRG Stadium to watch the game virtually with their families. The commercial captured the real-time reactions of the surprise family reunions, striking an emotional chord with viewers, leaving them in goosebumps.

3D Replays

FOX Sports teamed up with Intel to bring fans inside the helmets of their favorite players. The “Be The Player” feature utilized a combination of over 38 cameras distributed across the stadium, including Super Motion and 4K cameras. Intel’s 360 Replay technology was able to recreate some of the biggest plays in 3D to give fans a personal point-of-view perspective without players having to wear a camera.

VR Highlights

FOX Sports partnered with LiveLike to provide fans with game highlights in VR through the FOX Sports VR app. Unfortunately fans could not watch the entire game via virtual reality (yet), however fans could participate in the fully immersive experience for 20 different plays (4 per quarter). For fans that did not have virtual reality equipment, the FOX Sports VR app created a “magic window” mode that allowed anyone with a smartphone to enjoy a breathtaking 360° perspective of NRG Stadium.

Twitter Live On-the-Scene

Twitter and the NFL kicked off the 2016 season with a deal that allowed the social media site to live stream 10 Thursday night Football games. Although this deal did not extend to the Super Bowl, Twitter played a monumental role with 5.6B tweet impressions during the big game. Twitter did not let it’s live video feature go to waste, and instead deployed live steaming to give  followers up-to-date information, exclusive interviews, and behind-the-scene looks into their favorite team as soon as they landed in Houston. During the game, Twitter users were encouraged to use the “Explore” tab to easily access video and photo updates from the field.

You don’t have to be NFL or FOX Sports to use strategic video technology tactics to engage audiences. The good news is that video continues to become more powerful and dynamic medium as the technology becomes more accessible to video creators of all kinds. For tips and tricks on how to leverage all the latest video trends and learn things like How Live Video is Changing Social Media, check back with our weekly blogs.