‘Ted 2’ Trailer, Universal Join Patriots in Big Super Bowl Sunday Win

No, this isn’t a reference to Tom Brady appearing in the Super Bowl-debuted Ted 2 trailer; Universal, the studio behind the film, cashed in big last Sunday.

Using a solid tag-team of TV and Facebook, the new trailer logged 31.7 million views on the social media site and YouTube, with likes, tweets, and hashtags galore to follow.

According to RelishMIX, an entertainment stat tracker, Ted 2 landed the top spot, ahead of Furious 7, Fifty Shades of Grey, Minions, and Jurassic World – all Universal films.

With the studio’s Pitch Perfect 2 in the 8-spot & Seventh Sun rounding out the top ten, Universal owned 7 of the 12 total trailers debuted.

Keep in mind that the going rate for a 30-second Super Bowl ad was $4.5 million.

The key to Universal’s success was their utilization of Facebook’s recently launched native video player – as opposed to the actual YouTube site – for distribution. This is a definite sign of things to come, as Facebook has much more users than YouTube, and can reach a broader (in both number and age) audience. Also, Ted 2 star Mark Wahlberg (who personally owns 15 million likes on the site) was present at the big game, which likely helped his cause.

Prior to kick-off, Universal had a lone Ted 2 trailer on their Facebook page (which has racked up 21 million page likes) with 28 million video views there, and 12 million more on YouTube. Add to that 11 million and counting after the game.

Clearly Universal scored a big win on game day. The losers? Other than the Seattle Seahawks, it’d have to be lovers of original ideas: 7 of the 12 new trailers were for sequels, reboots, or spinoffs, and – if you want to get technical – 4 more are based on books. Disney’s Tomorrowland is the only true original, and even that is named after the area of Disney World.

[via Deadline/chart via RelishMIX]