Joshua Vs. Ruiz: How Heavyweight Brands DAZN And Snickers Delivered Knockouts June 1

Now that the dust has settled and we're just about one week separated from Andy Ruiz's big upset win over former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua, I want to shine a light on two brands that very well might be the biggest winners of the June 1 event at Madison Square Garden. Normally I like to tell a story, add a little tongue in cheek humor while providing my own unique take on the topic at hand. But in this case, I want to simply share compelling data that illustrates another knockout as a parallel story to the other knockout. You know, the one that makes the rest of this story relevant. I hope you're following me here.

Sometimes I get into the paralysis by analysis mode and become frozen when wanting to spit out so much compelling information on a given topic. This is one of those cases where cause and effect kept the narrative surrounding this fight going and growing and it's still growing. I mean, even the data I'm about to provide will have grown before I publish this post.

This is a perfect example as to how the outcome and method of the result can begin a ripple effect that transcends the event itself while getting on the radar of the general public and creating a demand that didn't exist just one day before. At the same time, creating a new narrative and selling tool that would have gotten someone fired at DAZN for instance for merely mentioning the potential of Joshua losing to Ruiz in this case. In addition, if it were Jarrell Miller and not Ruiz, we wouldn't be having this conversation to the extent we're having it.

HAPPY ENDING

Tracy David, the head of marketing for social analytics platform ListenFirst said,"Many fights have a huge amount of hype leading into the event but suffer from an underwhelming ending. Anthony Joshua vs. Andy Ruiz was not one of those fights. With both fighters knocked down in a single round and a massive underdog claiming victory, the online conversation continued on well past the final bell. That was especially true for Snickers, which got a boost from Ruiz's high profile fandom, for instance there was a 369 percent increase of new Twitter followers for Snickers on Monday compared to the day of the actual fight."

MAKING A GOOD IMPRESSION(S)

ONE MAN'S DEMISE IS ANOTHER MAN'S GAIN

Anthony Joshua losing to Andy Ruiz is the best thing that could have happened to DAZN. Let me say that again (but read it slowly for dramatic purposes and don't share this with Eddie Hearn). Anthony Joshua losing to Andy Ruiz is the best thing that could have happened to DAZN. You see, the haters out there that want to see DAZN fail, simply because they don't understand it, don't want to adapt to it, don't want to accept it or simply don't like Anthony Joshua or Canelo Alvarez or whatever their problem is, felt that this was a death blow to the fledgling streaming service. Well... They couldn't be any more wrong. As counterintuitive as it sounds, because believe me, if I told you that Joshua losing to Ruiz would be exactly what DAZN needed, you'd think that something was wrong with me. Joshua was the anchor to DAZN's coming out party. The story that was being written was going to climax with a Joshua vs. Deontay Wilder heavyweight showdown with millions having to subscribe to the streaming service. Cut to John Skipper and Eddie Hearn holding hands walking out, taking a bow as the confetti is falling. Well, that still may happen, but not the way DAZN and Hearn may have initially envisioned it.

DAZN couldn't have bought this type of brand awareness if they wanted to.

The Joshua vs. Ruiz fight highlights surpassed four million YouTube views in less than 24 hours, and is currently in excess of 10 million (and climbing). 

It was the number one trending video on YouTube for two days and still sits on the Top 10 list. It’s the most-watched organic YouTube video DAZN has ever posted and the most-watched boxing video on YouTube this year to date. The Deontay Wilder knockout of Dominic Breazeale has 1.8 million YouTube views for context and the Facebook highlight video has in excess of 1.6 million views (and climbing). The Twitter highlight also cracked the six million view mark and was shared by various outlets such as SportsCenter, Bleacher Report and The Ringer. That tweet also has over 13 thousand re-tweets and 36.7 thousand ‘likes’, both the most ever for a DAZN piece of Twitter content. Not to mention, there is now a really compelling Anthony Joshua fight for the fourth quarter of 2019 which wouldn’t have been the case had Joshua won since Wilder and Tyson Fury are angling to fight each other again.

The conversation volume Around DAZN was 92.5 thousand between July 1-3, 2019 an increase of 322 percent compared to May 29-31, 2019. Conversation Volume measures consumer mentions of a brand through explicit references to the brand's owned digital presences and official hashtags in user generated content. DAZN was mentioned in 135,247 Tweets between June 1-3, 2019 with the handle @DAZN_USA mentioned in 75,714 Tweets during the same time period.  There were 20.8 thousand page views of the DAZN Wikipedia page on June 1-3, 2019, an increase of 202 percent compared to May 29-31, 2019. There were 29 million video views around DAZN between June 1-3, 2019, counting official Facebook, Twitter and YouTube views.

BEYOND SATISFYING

The Ruiz victory was nearly as big a deal for Snickers as it was the fighter. Ruiz who as of yet still doesn't have an official relationship with Snickers (at least not formally announced or reported) is a huge fan of the candy to the point that a Snickers bar was the banner photo on his Twitter account with Snickers sending him a congratulatory Tweet. The mutual appreciation paid off. The ListenFirst Conversation Score for Snickers jumped from 896 on June 1 to 2,516 on June 2, an increase of 181 percent. The Social Engagement Score for Snickers increased from 1,344 on June 1, 2019 the night of the fight, to 6,889 on June 2 to 8,848 on June 3, an increase of 413 percent and 558 percent from fight night around Snickers. The Social Engagement Score includes Fan Growth, Content Responses, and Conversation Volume metrics such as Likes, Shares, and Comments from Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter.

Some social highlights around the candy bar brand include a 94 percent increase of engagement around the Snickers Wikipedia page the day after the fight, comparing June 2 to June 1, 2019.  Snickers gained 211 new Twitter followers on June 2 and another 506 new Twitter followers on June 3, compared to 45 new Twitter followers the day of the fight, June 1, 2019. In the three days around the fight, the volume of Tweets mentioning Snickers increased by 880 percent, comparing June 1-3, to May 29-31, 2019.  The content reaction score for Snickers increased by 519 percent  on June 3 compared to June 1, 2019 (from 846 to 5,236). That means people are even more engaged with Snickers a couple of days after the fight. Content Reactions Score measures Facebook total reactions, and Total Like from Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

On Sunday June 2, 2019 on the audience data and content analysis network Parse.ly, the day after the Joshua vs. Ruiz fight there was 1,218,580 views around Anthony Joshua from 431 articles, while there were 986,660 views mentioning Andy Ruiz from 205 articles. Looking at the Demand metric or the average number of views to each article, there was on average 4.8 thousand views per article around Andy Ruiz compared to 2.8 thousand views per article for Joshua. The fact that there was 1.7 times as many page views around content focusing on Ruiz compared to Joshua indicates the media was most interested in the narrative of the heavily favored Joshua losing while the audience was more interested in learning more about largely unknown underdog who won. 

According to Parse.ly, on their network between June 5, 2018 - June 6, 2019; 23 percent of all DAZN page views were Joshua related. In comparison during the same time period, 66 percent of the DAZN page views on their network were Canelo Alvarez related. That's an indication that DAZN gets the benefit of a high profile upset without Alvarez, their asset who is by far the driving the most page views being the person suffering the loss.

Now read this about five more times to digest it all. Lastly. If Matchroom Boxing won't give Andy Ruiz his $50 million asking price for the rematch, DAZN and Snickers should chip in. He earned it.