As Nickelodeon prepared for its biggest partnership yet - broadcasting a SpongeBob-ified version of Super Bowl LVIII, we aimed to embrace Taylor Swift fans. Taylor Swift was everywhere during this NFL season, bringing in a massive new fanbase to the sport of American football. This outpouring of Swiftie support had fans completely divided on whether or not Swift should take center stage in the world of American football. Nickelodeon is about belonging and we wanted to smartly signal to Swifties they were welcome at our Super Bowl party. To drive Taylor's massive fanbase to the Nickelodeon broadcast, we created hype and intrigue among Swifties by leaning into trending fan theories surrounding Taylor's unlikely appearance at the game. We utilized popular, well-known memes and customized them with Taylor Swift-themed nods and SpongeBob visuals - appealing to multiple fans from casual to hardcore, creating a buzz-worthy connection between the popstar and Nickelodeon.

To drive Taylor’s massive fan base to our Nickelodeon broadcast, we became Swifties ourselves. And who better to personify this optimism and excitement more than our own global superstar, SpongeBob SquarePants. In our Super Bowl campaign that equated to 38 pieces of Taylor-centered content, we leaned into the recognizability of already popular, well-known SpongeBob memes that were customized with Taylor Swift-themed nods that embraced her catalog, her most niche facts, and a trending fan theory surrounding Taylor’s unlikely (but possible!) attendance at the Super Bowl. This established a dual appeal of timely humor, but also established another safe space for her fans on social to appreciate one another and Nickelodeon as a Taylor stan account. Our strategy checked our boxes of appealing to fans from casual to hardcore, creating a buzz-worthy connection between the pop star and Nickelodeon, and leveraging our IP to drive our Super Bowl broadcast.

Through this campaign, we looked to develop a strategy that seamlessly merged the worlds of Taylor Swift and SpongeBob SquarePants, showcasing how both elements can coexist in a way that is appealing to Swifties, football fans, and fans of SpongeBob. We sought to play up the possibilities of what could happen when you bring these two EPIC communities together, combining easter eggs Swifties are trained to hunt for with the same callouts and throwbacks SpongeBob fans celebrate across our channels. We looked to reach fans across platforms on Instagram and Tiktok where we know both fandoms thrive. But, we wanted to be subtle, and utilized caption copy that nodded to the Taylor Swift fan base without always being explicit, ensuring our messaging caught the discerning eyes of Swifties, excited our football fans, and emphasized the inclusive and positive nature of the Nickelodeon broadcast.

Through 38 social pieces of Taylor Swift focused content we were able to garner 11 million views and 2.7 million engagements, which floored our Super Bowl LVIII campaign to achieve 470M social impressions, 9.1B+ Incremental impressions, 8.6B+ press impressions. Nickelodeon was the MOST mentioned brand on Game Day. It was the most Social Nickelodeon event EVER with 18M Engagements on the Nickelodeon owned accounts and 224M social views with 170M on game day alone. This treasure trove of content allowed for endless dialogue in our comment section about how thrilled fans were to see that SpongeBob was a “Swiftie” and how they’d be tuning in to the Nickelodeon Broadcast to cheer on Taylor (and maybe even Travis too!)