How Kia Was A part of the Sport With out Being within the Sport
Kia had an epiphany. Why spend $7 million, plus manufacturing prices, for a 30-second Tremendous Bowl industrial the place an unknown variety of shoppers would see the spot and there could be restricted interplay with the model. Why not spend a fraction of that and have 540,000+ spend high quality time with the model by means of social media?
The 2025 Kia Squares sweepstakes, developed for Kia by their inventive company David & Goliath, was a free-to-play contest timed for the 5 days earlier than Tremendous Bowl LIX (performed on February 9, 2025). Primarily based on the basic squares sport that’s sometimes performed at Tremendous Bowl events, the guidelines had been simple to know. Gamers would choose squares on a ten x 10 grid discovered on Kia’s cell pleasant web site. Every grid had a quantity that corresponded to the final digit of every staff’s rating on the finish of every of the 4 quarters. The deadline to play was 45 minutes earlier than the kickoff.
All 4 winners had entered right into a drawing to win certainly one of 4 Kia autos. The sport was promoted on Instagram and TikTok, with Kia sellers blasting it to their particular person databases.
To get the small print on this promotion Clear Fleet Report spoke with Megan Gillam, Kia’s director advertising and marketing operations & model technique, and Brad Mays, director model expertise, who make clear why this promotion was so profitable.
Clear Fleet Report: How does Kia measure return on funding (ROI) on a social media promotion like Kia Squares?
Kia: There are three alternative ways we’re measurement. From a base perspective, we’re impressions. By way of each paid and natural media we tracked impressions so throughout all of the completely different channels we had over 100 million impressions. The second is clicks that got here by means of the distinctive URL of KiaSquares.com. We had been in a position to monitor how many individuals clicked by means of, from all of the media sources, which totaled 565,556 guests and resulted in 241,838 folks registering for the sweepstakes.
CFR: Now they’ve visited the web site, what was the following step?
Kia: People who opted-in may be taught extra about Kia. We added them to our database they usually went right into a CRM (Buyer Relationship Administration) curriculum. We didn’t, at this level, go too deep into demographics solely asking their title, e mail deal with and cellphone quantity.
CFR: Because you initially didn’t ask the place they stay means this database couldn’t be distributed to sellers in a selected metropolis. What did Kia do subsequent?
Kia: The names went into our hand-raiser curriculum the place they’d the chance to obtain extra data by agreeing to have a seller reach-out to them.
CFR: Have been there incentives to drive them to the seller and buy a automotive?
Kia: Kia doesn’t do lots of non-public presents or buy incentives. The preliminary data they obtain is product data. They are going to be among the many first to find out about new product launches and gross sales occasions.
CFR: Kia is large in sports activities and leisure sponsorships with the NBA, Kia Discussion board in California and the Kia Heart in Florida. Would possibly these hand-raisers be invited to a Kia occasion at certainly one of these venues?
Kia: The Kia Squares promotion was fairly straight-forward, the place somebody was opting-in to be a part of the competition to presumably win certainly one of 4 automobiles. Kia doesn’t do prize achievement on the producer stage, so it might be as much as a seller.
CFR: What are some takeaways and classes realized from the Kia Squares promotion?
Kia: This marketing campaign over-achieved our intentions. Greater than half of the impressions, 74 million, got here from TiKTok, which isn’t all super-young folks. It does recommend they had been youthful, however Kia has a really younger purchaser base.
We additionally sponsored the USA As we speak Advert Meter, which is an commercial rating for the Tremendous Bowl the place folks can view Tremendous Bowl advertisements within the week earlier than the sport. Regardless that we didn’t have an commercial that ran on the Tremendous Bowl, we had been in a position to get our Kia Squares promotion included in what ads may very well be considered earlier than the sport. We additionally had an 88% optimistic sentiment ranking amongst people who previewed the promotion.
CFR: Are you able to focus on the fee for Kia Squares?
Kia: The entire value of the prize autos and the promotion was a small fraction of what it might have been to take part within the Tremendous Bowl from an promoting perspective. I can’t share our precise prices and ROI numbers. I can say it was a really small fraction of what we’d have spent on an advert and in return we received over 100 million impressions, 241,838 entrants and virtually 250,000 folks sign-up as hand-raisers. This was a strategy to be a part of the sport with out being within the sport.
CFR: Will there be extra of some of these promotions?
Kia: This was a novel alternative that gave us a seat on the (Tremendous Bowl) desk, so to talk. We don’t foresee it being one thing we might be doing frequently, however to return in for 5 days (the February 4-9 contest entry window) and generate this a lot buzz and pleasure for the fee, it was nice. We had been doing Tremendous Bowl advertisements for fairly a while, and Kia Squares appeared like a terrific concept to remain current and keep seen in a cultural occasion that we had been part of.
CFR: One other main promotion Kia does every year is to sponsor the New 12 months’s Eve ball drop in Occasions Sq.. Having executed it for a number of years, it should be profitable. How do you measure it?
Kia: That is one other one the place we’re in a position to take a look at impressions. We measure when persons are watching the ball drop, round midnight, to see what number of are going to our web site and our socials, which provides us fairly tangible illustration of how engaged persons are. Inside the first 24 hours of the ball drop we have now seen a noticeable spike in Kia.com visitors that we will attribute to all of the eyeballs that had been on Occasions Sq. and the printed.
Notice: The Kia prize autos had been the 2025 EV9, Sportage, Carnival and K5. The winners resided in these cities with their Kia prize famous. EV9 GT-Line – Candler, N.C.; Sportage X-Professional SX Status AWD – Clarksville, Tenn.; Carnival HEV SX Status – St. Louis, Mo. ; and a K5 GT in El Monte, Calif.
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Story by John Faulkner. Photographs and graphics by Kia.
The put up Tremendous Bowl Shock: 2025 Kia Squares first appeared on Clear Fleet Report.
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