Puppy love for Puppy Bowl X

In this weekend of celebrated pigskin, seven layer dips, and laziness, marketers and social media mavens have honed in on a whole ‘nother media strategy- puppy love. Earlier this week, all of America was given a taste for what lay in store super bowl Sunday. While the internet watches and shares “Puppy Love” for the next few days, Animal Planet plans to capitalize on the love for their tenth annual Puppy Bowl.

During your super bowl this year, expect furry friends to be just as popular as Anna Kendrick, Scarlett Johansson, and other big name celebrities with their flashy endorsements. On this weekend famous for its TV viewing, Animal Planet has been able to harness the puppy gimmick and turn it into a good cause. All the puppies and kittens, who appear on the half-time show of course, are adoptable.

This show also translates into some serious coverage. Last year, Animal Planet was able to have over 2.6 million unique viewers during super bowl Sunday, the highest rated show besides the big game itself. This year, they have made a similar marketing move that Budweiser did, by making the bowl a story before it was a story. The Animal Planet website is filled with line-ups, head shots, and football oriented names to continue the theme. Some truly dedicated individuals can also create a bracket for the game.

This move is one that ends the passivity of super bowls past. Now, instead of simply watching- viewers are prometed to share on various platforms why they are rooting for their favorite pup. They even have time in the next few days to begin the dangerous dance of attachment, and potentially puppy love for the pigskin puppies.

Here’s the Puppy Bowl by the numbers, thanks to our friends at CNN. The full story can be found here.

2 hours – Official length of each year’s “Puppy Bowl.”

6 — Times it’s replayed on Super Bowl Sunday. It’s not really a 12-hour show!

12.4 million – Total number of Puppy Bowl IX viewers in 2013.

2.6 million – Average number of viewers during “Puppy Bowl IX” in 2013.

1.1 million – Average number of viewers during the blackout of Super Bowl XLVII in 2013.

5.58 million — Viewers who watched “Puppy Bowl I” on February 6, 2005.

36 — Puppies in Puppy Bowl X’s starting lineup.

12-18 weeks – Age range of the puppies in the starting lineup.

37 — Adoption agencies and shelters that provided the puppy players.

12-15 — Number of puppies on the “field” at a time. This is one of several good Puppy Bowl statistics we found from Ad Age.com

30 – Kittens performing a “domino topple” during the halftime show.

More than 34 million – Views on YouTube of the “Original Keyboard Cat” that was first posted in 2007. A new version will be performing during Puppy Bowl X.

Almost 300,000 — Tweets mentioning the Puppy Bowl IX Twitter users sent during its two-hour premiere in 2013.

49 – Animal Planet crew members on the job during this year’s bowl.

103 – Total number of hours of footage shot for Puppy Bowl X.