New York Times READ

The Real MVPs: The Athletic Brands of NBA All-Star Weekend 2016

Published by Engagement Labs February 18, 2016

That’s a wrap, folks. After months of preparation, excitement and build-up, NBA’s All-Star Weekend 2016 came to a close this past weekend in Toronto - or the 6ix, as the cool kids say.

The record-breaking weekend not only brought out the best in the players and celebrities in attendance, but some of the biggest athletic brands as well, as they pulled out all the stops to grab the attention of fans who were paying close attention to the festivities.

Engagement Labs took a look at three of the biggest athletic brands who rose above the rest during the All-Star weekend to see what they did to rebound off that offline fan excitement and score online:

Nike Canada

Nike Canada may have been the MVP brand of the All-Star weekend as they launched “the ultimate sneakers experience” with their SNKRS XPRESS - a Toronto streetcar turned into a sneaker store.


Nike All-Star Weekend Highlights

  • On Facebook, Nike Canada increased their overall eValue score by over 15 points
  • On Twitter, Nike Canada scored an impressive 95.53 for Engagement
  • Nike Basketball, scored an excellent 85.97 for overall eValue score on Twitter, rising over 30 points from the week before
  • On Instagram, Nike experienced a dramatic rise in followers with 538,071 new followers

How did the brand dribble their way to online success?

  • On Facebook, the brand shared behind-the-scenes photos and videos looking at Nike Canada’s SNKRS XPRESS, generating MAJOR engagement according to eValue data

Engagement Labs | Nike Canada Social Media Example

  • On Twitter, Nike Canada shared related posts from its numerous counterpart accounts (e.g. Nike Basketball, Nike Store, Nike Women, etc.) to extend their reach and engage with more fans
  • The brand’s Nike Basketball account was frequently active during All-Star weekend leveraging the brand’s #BringYourGame hashtag with posts sharing highlights from the weekend’s festivities

Engagement Labs | Nike Basketball Social Media Example

  • The Nike Instagram account gained up to 327,400 likes and 1,300 comments for their post about the SNKRS XPRESS during the weekend, while Nike Basketball took to Instagram to post professional photography of players participating in the All-Star events

Engagement Labs | Nike Instagram Example

Adidas

If you caught the NBA All-Star game this past weekend, you probably were bombarded with Adidas ads during the commercial breaks. 


Adidas All-Star Weekend Highlights

  • On Twitter, Adidas Basketball’s account more than doubled its Engagement score, in comparison to the week before
  • Adidas Basketball’s Instagram account increased its overall eValue score by over 10 points from the week before, while boasting the most active user base of the athletic brands measured

What did Adidas do to get people talking online?

  • Using the Adidas Basketball account @AdidasHoops, on Twitter, the brand leveraged the #NBAAllStarTO hashtag throughout the weekend, posting images of celebrities interacting with fans at Adidas stores

Engagement Labs | Adidas Social Media Example

  • On Instagram, the Adidas Basketball account also leveraged the #NBAAllStarTO hashtag, while posting Toronto-native Andrew Wiggins’ journey around “the 6ix”, helping to generate up to 21,100 likes on the account’s most engaged post

Engagement Labs | Adidas Basketball Instagram Example

Engagement Labs | Adidas Social Media Example

Jordan

Jordan may fall under the official brand of Nike, however, the brand known famously for its shoes gained a life of its own during the basketball bonanza this past weekend.


Jordan All-Star Weekend Highlights

  • On Facebook, Jordan increased their following with 23,636 new fans
  • On Twitter, the brand continued to grow significantly with 13,621 new fans and the most active user base of the brands measured
  • On Instagram, Jordan also grew with 88,398 new fans

Opening up a new Jordan store in the host city, the Jordan social media channels went into overtime grabbing the attention of online fans:

  • With a focus of the latest store opening, Jordan’s Facebook page used a private video tour to generate up to 19,800 likes and 10,300 shares on their posts.

Engagement Labs | Jordan Social Media Example

  • Jordan on Twitter focused on the ‘lasting legacy’ of Kobe Bryant, who played his last All-Star Game. Tagging the star player and featuring an article about his tribute at the newly-opened Toronto store location, the brand received over 5,600 retweets and likes

Engagement Labs | Social Mediia Example of Jordan

  • Consistent branding was all Jordan needed on Instagram. Combining the hashtag #NBAAllStarTO with their #WEAREJORDAN hashtag on their posts covering the All-Star Game, the brand drew in 98,600 likes on one of their most engaged posts

The Last Shot

Big events like the NBA All-Star Weekend serve up the perfect opportunity for brands to grow their brand and engage their users with social media marketing.

You need to think of it like teamwork. A brand may have excellent offline campaigns, but if you don’t use social media to extend the reach, your campaign won’t reach its full potential.

Combine the effects of both social and offline and see your brand score a slam dunk with your fans.

For more information on eValue™ or to request a demo, visit www.evaluesuite.com or contact us at: sales@engagementlabs.com

For media inquires contact us at: media@engagementlabs.com


About eValue™:

The eValue™ score measures the effectiveness of a brand’s overall social media performance on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram and provides a score from 0 - 100. It’s the aggregate of the three subscores including Engagement, Impact, and Responsiveness that work together to create one top-level KPI. Our subscores are calculated by using hundreds of submetrics which are then benchmarked against a hand-picked database of 100,000 verified brand accounts on each channel.

Engagement: Measures the level of interaction generated by your content and how well your community reacts to it.

Impact: Measures how many unique users have potentially been exposed to a piece of content posted by the channel’s admin through organic, viral and paid reach.

Responsiveness: Measures the rate, speed and quality of your responses to fans.

Contact Us