Now when I first heard of Animal Planet doing the “Puppy Bowl” seven years ago, I thought well at least it will be cheap to put on since no one watches it. Puppy Bowl is Animal Planet’s answer to the Super Bowl, if you are unaware of it.
Boy did I forget the power Puppies have over people.
Puppy Bowl VII packed in viewers on Sunday to earn a ratings touchdown, drawing in its largest audience ever with 9.2 million unique P2+ viewers across the entire 12-hour marathon. With an average of more than 1.7 million P2+ viewers for its premiere, Puppy Bowl VII was up 60 percent from the previous year during the 3-5 PM ET/PT time slot. Think of what a gain they would have had if it was an off year for the Super Bowl.
The Game and the Players
The “game” takes place in Animal Planet Stadium’s custom football field and features an array of puppies including everything from spunky spaniels to baby bassets to mixed breeds as they give their all to make the big plays. All of the animals featured in Puppy Bowl VII are adoptable and came from 30 rescue and shelter groups representing 18 states and U.S. territories
Soical Media Power House
Animal Planet’s 360-degree approach to generating buzz for Puppy Bowl VII also led to huge gains in the social media space. Puppy Bowl VII dominated the overall Twitter conversation on Super Bowl Sunday. Three Puppy Bowl VII related topics made it into Twitter’s top trending topics with #puppybowl only second to #SuperBowl – a paid media placement. Overall, the trending topic terms – Puppy Bowl and #puppybowl – combined for a more than 16,000 mentions that reached an estimated 12 million Twitter users. In the week leading up to the 12-hour marathon event, Facebook’s Puppy Bowl VII fan page doubled its fan count.
