Did you watch Sunday’s Super Bowl XLV for the game or the commercials? The Green Bay Packers defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in an exciting game, but much of today’s talk around the water cooler has been about the ads.

Ad Age rated all of the Super Bowl XLV commercials. Watch all the commercials at www.foxsports.com/ads.

Consumers used blogs and social media sites to discuss ads in real time. The hashtag #brandbowl was the top trending topic on Twitter during the game.

We used Social Radar to run analysis around all major brands that advertised during the game.

Commercial chatter within Super Bowl conversations

The words commercial, ad, advertisement or brand were mentioned in 13.5% of Super Bowl conversations online yesterday and today.

Brand Mentions within Super Bowl Commercial Chatter

Of the brands that advertised during the Super Bowl, Chrysler was mentioned most often. The word Chrysler appeared in 4.49% of Super Bowl advertising chatter. Eminem, the pitch man in the Chrysler ad, as well as the Brisk tea ad, appeared in 3.9% of Super Bowl advertising chatter.  Chrysler generated buzz with a raw depiction of Detroit in its ad, as well as the new tagline “Imported from Detroit.”

Groupon was 2nd most often discussed brand, mentioned in 2.82% of Super Bowl advertising chatter.

Groupon Sentiment Trend

Groupon Sentiment Feb 6-7

Groupon generated negative headlines following its controversial commercial “spoof” of celebrity-endorsed public service announcements. Online conversations around Groupon, which were nearly 90% positive during the month of January, spiked to 60% negative today following the commercial.

Groupon Conversation Topic Cloud

Nearly every topic of conversation around Groupon today has been negative. The word ‘offensive’ appears in more than 5% of all Groupon conversations today.

Regardless of whether the conversations are positive or negative, Groupon generated a lot of publicity thanks to their controversial ad. Is there really no such thing as bad press?

As the NBA season begins, new Nike and Adidas ads are generating chatter and views online.

Nike’s new “LeBron Rise” spot, in which LeBron James repeatedly asks “What should I do” was the top viral video last week, with nearly 3 million views online.

Adidas’ spots with Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose were also among the most watched viral videos of the week.

Which of these billion-dollar brands is generating more conversation?

Nike generated three times more online chatter than Adidas throughout the past month.

Nike vs. Adidas chatter

LeBron was mentioned in an average of almost 3% of Nike conversations online during the last month, spiking over 7% on October 24 when the commercial was released.

LeBron mentions within Nike conversations

Chatter around both Adidas and Nike is overwhelmingly positive, with 90% positive chatter for Nike and 91% positive chatter for Adidas.

Nike vs. Adidas sentiment

Land Rover recently became the first brand to execute a national Twitter campaign to promote its newest models’ debuts at the 2009 New York Auto Show.

The campaign promoted hashtag #LRNY in out-of-home venues like billboards and taxi TVs to spread the word of Land Rover’s Twitter efforts.

Was it a success? The campaign cost Land Rover nearly nothing and generated a significant increase in buzz leading up to the New York Auto Show.

According to a recent study, the best way to get Internet users to visit your website or follow your brand is brand mentions, not banner ads, pop-up ads, e-mail offers and sponsored links. So increased word-of-mouth chatter could be considered one form of success for Land Rover.

But what were people saying? Sentiment around Land Rover was largely positive during the spike in chatter, with words like “best” and “luxurious” appearing high in the results.

Digging a bit deeper, we wanted to identify the top influencers on Land Rover during the first few weeks in April. Using Social Radar, we created the visual ecosystem below showing some of the most influential sources and how they connected.

The visual is based on metrics such as the ratio of content matching the Land Rover query, post frequency, inbound link frequency, outbound link frequency, and more. For additional info, Social Radar users can click on any of the bubbles to see stats.

Nearly 45% of Internet users will visit a social network at least once per month, according to eMarketer, but social network advertising represents just 5% of overall online ad dollars. Should more companies follow Land Rover’s lead?

More importantly, can Land Rover use excitement around the campaign to sustain relationships with customers online?