The goal of this campaign was to provide exclusive, breakout creative to an emerging social media platform. So we paired advertising icon Flo, the Progressive Girl with pro basketball legend LeBron James and FloBron was born.
The campaign was designed to live on Progressive's Instagram account and on one of the newest advertising platforms on the market, Instagram videos. Launched on Halloween, we used this emerging platform to target a young audience with disruptive, contextually-relevant content that felt native to the channel.
The fans responded and throughout this campaign we increased our Instagram fan base by more than 382% and received 52,844 engagements on 37 organic posts.
The project validated our belief that to maximize effectiveness, relevance and reach, content must be designed and created with the space in mind rather than forced into a medium where it doesn't belong.
Flo, the Progressive Girl, has become a national icon. Fans recognize her as a spokeswoman, but also increasingly embrace her quirky personality and funny antics. But could some of that sparkle rub off on other celebrities? It definitely could.
When Flo met FloBron, a newfound friendship was born and the fans watched on as together they shared secrets for pre-game rituals, trick shots and sometimes questionable style choices.
While some videos and photos were shared across various social platforms, the campaign was developed exclusively for Instagram. The Instagram platform was selected because it directly targeted the young adult audience Progressive wanted to build a relationship with.
It proved to be a good choice.
We knew the best way to get this audience's attention was by offering compelling, exclusive content in a space where it would be embraced. And unlike most branded content found on social, you couldn't find FloBron on TV. Because of the exclusivity, uniqueness and entertainment value of the FloBron concept, the reaction from fans was overwhelming. By utilizing Instagram's brand new paid video placements, we grew our fan base by over 382% over the duration of the campaign A total of 37 organic posts gathered almost 53,000 engagements and countless impressions. Hashtag #FloBron traveled around the socialverse and resulted in over 23,000 mentions on Twitter and news outlets alone.
This social campaign created an entirely new fan base, introduced a new character in Progressive's marketing story, and started a new revolution we called The Switch. LeBron James made the switch to become part of the Progressive family. He may not have been the first, but we know he certainly won't be the last.
