Target audience & strategy

When a former college football star approaches you and says he has no budget and no strategy in place with just two weeks to plan an event, you must act like an athlete and move faster and smarter than you think you can. The “A Night to Remember” campaign targeted Tennessee Volunteer Football fans in and around Knoxville, along with carefully crafted personas of other sports fans, media professionals, and supporters of The Change Center, a local non-profit. Using local “football heroes” as social media influencers to promote and drive conversation around the event, we were able to target messaging that resonated with our personas, entice people to buy tickets, and come out to support the event in greater numbers than anticipated. 

Implementation & creativity

We designed a social campaign across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to utilize the reach of carefully selected “football heroes.” We executed a slow reveal of the event through custom graphics and teaser video appeals posted at strategic intervals to build interest and conversation for a slow unveiling of the event. We created custom graphics for each celebrity that signed on to the event, spurred excitement for auction items, gathered questions for a Q&A panel, and reached influential football stars with enormous followings to amplify our efforts - without a single dollar of advertising investment.

Results & evaluation

The “A Night to Remember” campaign saw an estimated reach of nearly 50,000 Facebook and Instagram impressions, over 2 million Twitter impressions, and 17,600 video views. The campaign also received responses, replies, retweets, and engagement from accounts that reached more than 1.1 million people, including Josh Dobbs, Vol_Football (the official Twitter of the University of Tennessee Football team), and other sports stars, news agencies and anchors, and fan accounts. Despite a two-week lead time to promote the event, all tickets were sold out within days. Furthermore, the event held a silent auction of items donated by local businesses and celebrities; all items in the auction were sold. The ANTR campaign achieved both goals of raising awareness for the Change Center, as well as facilitating donations to the organization and creating a successful event that was special for Vol Nation, the dynamic fans of the University of Tennessee Volunteers.

Summary

A Night to Remember saw an incredible reach in impressions that was achieved entirely with organic means, something that’s increasingly challenging in the current pay-to-play marketplace on social media. The campaign for “A Night to Remember” achieved strong performance, especially as a pro-bono project for a brand new, never-before-hosted, philanthropic event. The campaign was successful in building awareness for the Change Center, as well as facilitating donations to the organization through a sold-out event. Across the board, we hit every goal and smashed our initial goals for impression, reach, and engagement metrics.