The Pokémon franchise aired a nostalgia-inducing commercial for its 20th anniversary during the Super Bowl football game on February 7.
The minute-long video has since been viewed more than 22 million times on YouTube and the shorter, 30-second ad that aired on TV has garnered its own 825,000 views. Fans, charmed by the “Train On” message or just happy to see Gyarados on their TVs, took to Twitter to share their feelings.
Consumer-sentiment analytics firm Canvs compiled the response and found that the ad generated 11,461 tweets during its airtime and 4,230 of the tweets denoted a “genuine emotional response.” Approximately two-thirds of the emotional reactions fell into Canvs’ “love” category and one in 10 of the emotional responses included the respondent saying they “cried.”
It’s worth noting that the phrase “crying” isn’t necessarily used literally on social media, similar to “screaming.” Both are sometimes one-word responses that can mean a strong humorous reaction or are used for exaggerated effect. It may be more likely that viewers were “touched” by the nostalgic commercial but can translate to responses like “crying” regardless of any actual waterworks.
The “Train On” ad won YouTube‘s 2016 AdBlitz, a voter-based poll to select the best Super Bowl adverts.
[Via Nintendo Insider]
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