Measuring USPS / SpongeBob SquarePants engagement

One of the most important conundrums facing marketers today is “how well did my campaign perform?” For direct response, the answer is practically built into the campaign. But for branding or sponsorships, how accurately can effectiveness – and engagement – be measured?

Consumer engagement is the ultimate measure of success for sponsorships, and social affinities are the best way to quantify this engagement.

This was the idea that we had in mind when Nickelodeon approached us following a 2013 holiday season promotion. Nickelodeon had partnered with United States Postal Services, which made its mailboxes look like SpongeBob SquarePants and encouraged kids to drop in their letters to Santa. The transformed mailboxes appeared in only six major U.S. markets, supported by light TV promotion on Nickelodeon’s own air.

To evaluate success post-campaign, AffinityAnswers reviewed the mutual affinity growth between SpongeBob SquarePants and the USPS. Also added to our analysis were UPS and FedEx, to provide a benchmark against delivery companies that had no partnerships in place with SpongeBob or Nick. Social affinity is unique in its ability to measure; an unobtrusive, scalable panel of social users is perfectly suited to determine if two seemingly unrelated brands can increase engagement with one another.

The results: USPS was the only delivery company to show any significant growth in engagement with SpongeBob SquarePants. TrueAffinity™, AffinityAnswers’ proprietary score that measures engagement and receptivity between brands, grew 3.2% for SpongeBob and USPS. There was virtually no growth between SpongeBob and UPS or FedEx.

This was meaningful for Nickelodeon and for any marketers that needed another way to either validate sponsorship partner choices or measure the results of a previous campaign. TrueAffinity™ is designed not only to measure engagement and receptivity, but also to be responsive to advertising that would spark interest among fans of either group.