Some advertisers used the TV-social media connection in a different way on Super Bowl Sunday when the lights went out at the Superdome in New Orleans. Audi, Walgreens and Oreo were just three brands that engaged in “newsjacking,” as it is called in marketing; all quickly issued tweets that used the blackout to help get their marketing messages across.

Walgreen’s tweet: “We also sell candles,” followed by the #SuperBowl hashtag.

Oreo was able to design an ad showing a cookie in shadow. “You can still dunk in the dark,” the ad said.

“Broadcast media companies — and as we saw with Oreo’s Blackout Jack during the Super Bowl this past Sunday — know that Twitter is where viewers go to interact with other viewers around content in real time. So Twitter has grown into a primary engagement channel for broadcast media,” Greg Verdino, marketing strategist and founder ofVerdino, told the E-Commerce Times.

“Spikes in conversation around high interest content, in turn, make Twitter a powerful discovery channel,” he noted. “The catch is even if you know this is happening, data is critical to drive monetization.”

“newsjacking,” indeed.