*By Amanda Weston* While the New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams face off for the Super Bowl title, advertisers will be waging their own battles during Twitter's Brand Bowl 53. Ryan Oliver, senior director of brand strategy for the U.S. and Canada at Twitter ($TWTR), said the Brand Bowl is a celebration of the advertisers that are being talked about on Twitter. For some, the ads are just as much of an event as the game itself. "They love the commercials. They love watching them," Oliver told Cheddar Friday. "But because Twitter is the live connection to culture, people turn to Twitter to talk about their favorite ads, what they saw, what made them laugh, what made them cry. And so we wanted to create Brand Bowl as a way to celebrate those advertisers that are doing it really well and getting people talking about advertising." To kick off the Brand Bowl, Twitter asks advertisers to participate, and then uses data scientists to see which campaigns are producing the highest volume of conversation. Oliver said 90 percent of advertisers participated in last year's inaugural event, and he expects to exceed that number this year. Five awards are up for grabs, including the MVP award for the brand with the highest percentage of all brand-related tweets during the game. Last year's winner was Pepsi ($PEP). Blitz goes to the brand that got the highest level of tweets per minute, and Quarterback goes to the one with a single tweet that drew the most retweets during the game. Video Replay, a new category this year, is bestowed on the brand that gets the most video views. And it's not just Super Bowl advertisers that can take part. An advertiser can win the Interception award for reaching the highest percentage of brand conversation among the companies that did not run a TV ad during the game. For those sitting at home, they can get involved first by just joining the conversation and tweeting about what they're seeing. Fans can also like [this tweet](https://twitter.com/TwitterMktg/status/1088894327890296835) to get alerts at the end of each quarter with a recap of the ads. "I think it's really turned into an important day for these advertisers to be ready in the moment," Oliver said. "So it used to be you had your strategy, you had your ad, and then you're kind of done and ready for that to air. But now because of the conversation on Twitter, brands need to be ready and prepared for maybe the unexpected as we've seen in past Super Bowls." For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/advertisers-prepare-to-face-off-in-twitters-brandbowl53).
