Rihanna and Taylor Swift Won The Last Two Super Bowls; Here's How You Can Win Customer Loyalty

The Kansas City Chiefs may have earned the Lombardi Trophy, but they were not the only winners at this year’s Super Bowl. In a recent CCW Digital webinar, leaders from Meltwater and STAUD revealed the brands – and Grammy-winning musicians – that also won the night by connecting with the largest American television audience in over 50 years.

More importantly, these leaders revealed steps all luxury organizations can take to strengthen their brand reputations, build loyalty, and thrive in today’s era of unprecedented competition and undeniable customer empowerment.

Rihanna vs. Usher: Two Iconic Performers, Two Vastly Different Brand Ramifications

In a testament to its standing as an overarching pop culture event, the most-watched segment of the annual Super Bowl does not typically involve football. Viewership has instead been peaking for the halftime show, during which A-list musician(s) wow the crowd with spectacular visuals and medleys of recognizable hits.

In 2023, Rihanna took the stage for an unforgettable performance. In 2024, Usher seized the opportunity to make magic for the Super Bowl audience.

But while both involved iconic performers highlighting their extensive discographies, the two shows ignited vastly different kinds of consumer dialogue.

“What we found was extremely unique about Rihanna’s performance in 2023 is that the conversation was about her,” revealed Louise Henderson of Meltwater during the February 15 webinar. “Her comeback to the stage, her pregnancy [reveal] … Rihanna was at the center of the conversation.”

The brands that received ample mention were directly connected to Rihanna and her wardrobe, with Fenty (Rihanna’s own beauty line), Loewe (responsible for Rihanna’s custom red jumpsuit), and Maison Margiela x Salomon (the collaboration behind her sneakers) spurring thousands, if not tens of thousands, of mentions during the 2023 game.

“Rihanna really is an idol, she’s an icon,” declared Henderson. “And the halftime conversation was so focused on her that the brands involved really did benefit from that aura.”

The Usher performance, on the other hand, was more about soundtracking a conversation than becoming the conversation. Although brands with which he is associated like SKIMS, Dolce&Gabbana, and Off-White received attention during the February 11 game, conversation volume paled in comparison to those seen for Rihanna’s collaborators.

Numerous other brands either tied to the general game broadcast (Paramount Plus) or memorable commercials (Verizon, Fanduel, Temu) actually spurred significantly more conversation volume during the 2024 Super Bowl.

The Taylor Swift Effect: How Taylor Dominated This Year’s Super Bowl

Granted, the comparison between the Rihanna and Usher halftime shows is not apples-to-apples. Whereas Rihanna was the undeniable celebrity focal point of the 2023 game, this year’s Super Bowl featured a major X-factor that goes by the name of Taylor Swift.

As her boyfriend Travis Kelce helped propel his Chiefs to victory on the field, the Grammy-winning Swift was cheering from a luxury box and dominating social media discourse. The artist’s presence at the game utterly captivated viewers, elevating America’s biggest annual sporting event into an unprecedented pop culture moment.

“The show stopper was Taylor Swift,” explained Louise Henderson of Meltwater, revealing that the “Midnights” Grammy winner was responsible for 17% of all celebrity mentions during the February 11 spectacle. Impressive in any context, the figure is especially staggering when one considers that Swift was strictly there as a supportive spectator – and had absolutely no involvement in this year’s halftime show.

The “Taylor Swift effect” even extended to other celebrities, with Swift’s friend – and luxury suite mate – Blake Lively commanding more social mentions than major (and high-priced) individual brand activations.

From a consumer conversation standpoint, Henderson understandably declared Swift to be the real “winner” of this year’s Super Bowl.

Don’t Judge an Event By Its Cover: Always Consider Consumer Context

For brand strategists, the 2023 and 2024 Super Bowls underscore the importance of going beneath the surface. Although both were technically a championship football game, extensive amounts of consumer dialogue had nothing to do with sports. Fans were talking about celebrities who cheered from the stands, non-sports brands that ran memorable commercials, and luxury designers who dressed musicians.

During the webinar, STAUD’s Stef O’Sullivan highlighted one brand that is making the most of this deeper, big-picture thinking for another major upcoming sporting event.

“We were talking the other day about Louis Vuitton and their involvement in the Olympics in Paris,” reflected O’Sullivan. “And maybe, initially, you’re like ‘oh, really weird.’ But it’s in their home country and the brand felt like they couldn’t not participate. I think that is a really grounded way of looking at how they can be involved and culturally supportive of their country and city.

“[Yes], there’s obviously a brand play there. There’s obviously going to be awareness that’s driven there. But it’s also very authentic and grounded in a shared value and goal.”

The Olympics partnership is obviously not going to help Louis Vuitton supplant Nike or Adidas as a top consumer athletic wear brand. But by associating itself with an event bigger than any individual sporting match, the luxury organization will further solidify its status as a pivotal cultural institution.

Beyond looking beneath the surface, effective partnerships and sponsorships also involve fully appreciating the context of an event. Rihanna and Usher performed similarly successful music before a similarly massive audience, yet those performances yielded different brand outcomes because of who they are as artists and who else was involved in the conversation. If potential partners or advertisers do not account for those contextual differences and simply expect every Super Bowl to drive similar awareness and discourse, they will greatly bottleneck their ROI.

Worse, they will come across as insincere and inauthentic. Their messaging will speak to a broad concept of what an event once was rather than the real-time reality of what it is – and what it means to those actively watching and participating.

Authenticity: Your Key To Control in an Increasingly Unpredictable World

Authenticity, of course, goes beyond tasteful alignment with the events one chooses to sponsor. It goes beyond careful consideration when it comes to partner and influencer selection.

It involves meaningfully committing to core values that are consistently evident in all facets of the brand’s operation. After all, today’s customers have countless options for attaining a high-quality product at a reasonable price. They also know that “liking” a brand is no longer a passive statement of complacency; it involves actively associating their digital footprint with a commercial organization.

Collectively, these realities highlight the importance of establishing a clear brand identity that resonates with consumers on a more meaningful, human level.

“What makes a brand stand out right now is how effectively and consistently you can communicate your values, your pillars, and your position through to your community,” declared O’Sullivan.

This is not to say that brands should never adapt; evolving alongside changing customer sentiment is admirable, and recalibrating based on business transformation is essential. It does, however, mean that the brand has to stand for something and understand what “that something” means in different contexts.

To foster growth, a luxury brand may rethink its price points or widen its distribution channel. On the surface, these initiatives may dampen the aura of “exclusivity” surrounding the brand. They need not, however, result in the brand losing its luxurious reputation.

The brand can instead maintain a tasteful evolution by delivering an exceptional experience throughout the customer journey.

“Experiences are very critical to staying relevant and top of mind for consumers, [especially] the younger generation that the brand may still be very inspirational or aspirational to,” explained O’Sullivan. “The customer experience is very intertwined with brand strategy; the way the customer navigates through your website or store, their experience with customer service, their after purchase [experience] … how you treat them during important moments are heavily … driven based on your values.”

A key takeaway, therefore, is to ensure that new distribution channels, manufacturers, and partners not only share the brand’s philosophical values but their commitment to quality, customer-centric experiences.

Unlocking Customer Sentiment: Steps to Success 24/7/365

Being authentic and emphatic about brand values is essential. Being stubborn, on the other hand, can be destructive.

Although no brand should compromise its values on a whim, all should keep an expansive, real-time pulse on how their product offerings, marketing messages, and partnership strategies are resonating with their target audiences. They should also keep an open-ear – and open-mind – to feedback that can uncover growth and improvement opportunities.

During the webinar, Henderson and O’Sullivan repeatedly trumpeted the need to monitor and measure customer sentiment and brand reputation on a 24/7/365 basis. It is imperative to keep a pulse on whether a brand is delivering the right message – and whether that right message is resonating as intended.

“There is a little bit of scariness sometimes, but you have to lean in and listen,” recommended O’Sullivan. “If there is an interesting finding, don’t be the ‘tenth dentist’ that just ignores it. Take action.

“[Successful] brands see the opportunity to go above and beyond in service. The North Face did it with helicoptering a jacket out to a hiker. Stanley just had a resurgence, and both of these things were because of the teams at those businesses paying attention. If you’re not doing that, you’re going to completely miss the mark and miss your opportunity to engage and potentially create a lifetime affinity.”

Modern solutions, such as those offered by Meltwater, help brands not only listen but make key strategic decisions based on what they are learning.

“What we really do is translate these values, these pillars into what we call social proxies,” shared Henderson. “Looking at KPIs, of course, but also looking at what people are actually talking about using AI and using human expertise. Our clients can easily navigate that social data and understand how their brand resonates with their consumers.”

Beyond helping a brand understand its own resonance and impact, this approach can uncover effective influencer opportunities.

“On the one hand, [we’re] monitoring the resonance of their values on their overall brand health, understanding, and sentiment,” added Henderson. “On the other hand, [we’re] drawing from that data set and that structuring to assess positioning of a certain influencer and comparing that position to their own values.”

To continue the conversation, connect with Louise Henderson and Stef O’Sullivan on LinkedIn.

For more on Meltwater’s approach to activating customer sentiment, click here.