With the 2023 Super Bowl hosted at State Farm Stadium in Arizona, State Farm sought to exploit maximum value from its long-term naming rights deal in a disruptive, ground-breaking way during the flagship advertising event of the year.
To do so, State Farm opted out of an expected in-game commercial and set out to use stadium naming rights as a lightning rod to drive awareness and engagement, while asserting its relatability and relevance with younger, harder-to-reach generations. Knowing the name State Farm would be seen and heard throughout the broadcast, State Farm set three lofty goals for the #StateFarmStadiumChallenge campaign:
The #StateFarmStadiumChallenge was created to strategically meet with younger consumers where they are, engaging them before, during, and after the Super Bowl while creatively highlighting stadium naming rights in a TikTok-forward promotion. Recognizing that TikTok is used by more than half of Gen Z and a third of Millennials, State Farm teamed up with the #1 most followed creator on TikTok, Khaby Lame, to help answer the question: “How do you show up big for the big game when your name is already on the building?”
Khaby’s massive followership (161.5M followers and 2.4B+ likes and counting) wasn’t the only deciding factor in that partnership; known for comedically demonstrating simple solutions to complex tasks with his signature talent for wordlessly emotive facial expressions, he was perfectly suited to showcase how “The big game came to us!” alongside Jake from State Farm in a way no other two partners could.
Partnering with Khaby also offered a distinct opportunity to generate engagement with a compelling call-to-action in the form of a sweepstakes-style contest. Pairing the world’s biggest TikTok star with an audience thoroughly connected to the platform, State Farm gamified the campaign by offering a one-of-a-kind prize for engaging with the post: a chance to appear in a Khaby TikTok. State Farm’s promotion required viewers to follow Jake from State Farm, post using #StateFarmStadiumChallenge hashtag, and comment with a guess of how many times State Farm would be mentioned during the big game broadcast. With an approach that relied on user engagement, the contest’s strategic value was immense, increasing visibility through the hashtag, driving engagement with the hero post through interactive guessing, and reinforcing the underlying creative concept of the campaign: centering State Farm Stadium’s role as the host arena of the Super Bowl.
To further bolster an enormous audience, State Farm engaged 13 of TikTok’s largest U.S. creators to drum up excitement and participation by leaning into each creator’s unique content style across their diverse cross-section of audiences numbering 245+ million. Using State Farm Stadium as the setting, the influencers interacted with Jake to add to the narrative and increase the appeal of engagement for their followers.
Between creatively using TikTok, the buzziest social platform, and all of these supporting elements, State Farm reached a vast cross-section of audiences, strategically generating awareness and follower growth of Jake’s TikTok to continue building relationships with younger consumers beyond just this campaign.
In fall of 2023, Matt, the winner of the promotion, appeared in a TikTok alongside Khaby and Jake. Keeping on brand for both Khaby and State Farm, this content helped convey the often-complicated topic of insurance in a simple way.
The historic results added tangible business value to State Farm and a significant additional return on its naming rights investment, giving compelling cause for companies to reassess their approach to future Super Bowls, partnerships, and naming sponsorships.
An incredible 220M+ people watched the Khaby/Jake video on TikTok alone, almost doubling the 113M Super Bowl viewers and outperforming tracked Super Bowl commercial viewership by an unprecedented 4x.
By leveraging the star power of Khaby Lame and a contest to appear in one of his future posts, State Farm generated an outstanding 400M+ reach, while the #StateFarmStadiumChallenge hashtag amassed 315M+ views. The viral campaign won 1B+ earned media impressions, and its 3.5B total brand impressions exceeded State Farm’s 875M goal by 75%.
Further, in 2023 following the campaign, Jake from State Farm crossed the 1M+ follower mark on TikTok, for meaningful engagement with younger consumers far beyond just the Super Bowl moment.
