Otterbox's latest TV ad made quite the impact on viewers this past month, breaking into iSpot's list of the five wireless industry TV ads with the most online engagement.
Topping iSpot's list was T-Mobile, which beat out Verizon by just 0.5 percentage points more digital engagement this time around. It's most engaging ad, “Road Trip,” featuring Ariana Grande, generated 26,000 social actions – a Facebook like, a Retweet, etc. – alone.
Verizon's top ad “iPhone 7 On Us” also made quite the splash, earning 1.1 million online views.
Overall, 20 brands ran 107 unique commercials nearly 44,500 times in the last 30 days. In total, those ads cost around $259.7 million, according to iSpot.tv, which puts out its monthly ad tracking in partnership with FierceWireless.
The amount of online engagement an ad receives doesn't tell us much about how many appearances it is making or how many people are watching it. But it does give us a glimpse of which ads are making an impact and forming an opinion with viewers, for better or worse.
For a smaller player like Otterbox to make an ad that engaging is quite an achievement, one that speaks to Otterbox's standing among consumers.
For reference, Otterbox's ad helped the company earn nearly as much online engagement as Sprint, which came in 2 percentage points ahead. However, Sprint accounted for 19.62 percent of the wireless industry's overall TV ad budget, while Otterbox has spent just $1.6 million airing the ad since the beginning of the year.