How Kia Was Part of the Game Without Being in the Game
Kia had an epiphany. Why spend $7 million, plus production costs, for a 30-second Super Bowl commercial where an unknown number of consumers would see the spot and there would be limited interaction with the brand. Why not spend a fraction of that and have 540,000+ spend quality time with the brand through social media?
The 2025 Kia Squares sweepstakes, developed for Kia by their creative agency David & Goliath, was a free-to-play contest timed for the five days before Super Bowl LIX (played on February 9, 2025). Based on the classic squares game that is typically played at a Super Bowl parties, the rules were easy to understand. Players would select squares on a 10 x 10 grid found on Kia’s mobile friendly website. Each grid had a number that corresponded to the last digit of each team’s score at the end of each of the four quarters. The deadline to play was 45 minutes before the kickoff.
All four winners had entered into a drawing to win one of four Kia vehicles. The game was promoted on Instagram and TikTok, with Kia dealers blasting it to their individual databases.
To get the details on this promotion Clean Fleet Report spoke with Megan Gillam, Kia’s director marketing operations & brand strategy, and Brad Mays, director brand experience, who shed light on why this promotion was so successful.
Clean Fleet Report: How does Kia measure return on investment (ROI) on a social media promotion like Kia Squares?
Kia: There are three different ways we are looking at measurement. From a base perspective, we are looking at impressions. Through both paid and organic media we tracked impressions so across all the different channels we had over 100 million impressions. The second is clicks that came through the unique URL of KiaSquares.com. We were able to track how many people clicked through, from all the media sources, which totaled 565,556 visitors and resulted in 241,838 people registering for the sweepstakes.
CFR: Now they have visited the website, what was the next step?
Kia: Those that opted-in could learn more about Kia. We added them to our database and they went into a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) curriculum. We didn’t, at this point, go too deep into demographics only asking their name, email address and phone number.
CFR: Since you initially didn’t ask where they live means this database couldn’t be distributed to dealers in a specific city. What did Kia do next?
Kia: The names went into our hand-raiser curriculum where they had the opportunity to receive more information by agreeing to have a dealer reach-out to them.
CFR: Were there incentives to drive them to the dealer and purchase a car?
Kia: Kia does not do a lot of private offers or purchase incentives. The initial information they receive is product information. They will be among the first to know about new product launches and sales events.
CFR: Kia is big in sports and entertainment sponsorships with the NBA, Kia Forum in California and the Kia Center in Florida. Might these hand-raisers be invited to a Kia event at one of these venues?
Kia: The Kia Squares promotion was pretty straight-forward, where someone was opting-in to be part of the contest to possibly win one of four cars. Kia does not do prize fulfillment at the manufacturer level, so it would be up to a dealer.
CFR: What are some takeaways and lessons learned from the Kia Squares promotion?
Kia: This campaign over-achieved our intentions. More than half of the impressions, 74 million, came from TiKTok, which isn’t all super-young people. It does suggest they were younger, but Kia has a very young buyer base.
We also sponsored the USA Today Ad Meter, which is an advertisement ranking for the Super Bowl where people can view Super Bowl ads in the week before the game. Even though we did not have an advertisement that ran on the Super Bowl, we were able to get our Kia Squares promotion included in what advertisements could be viewed before the game. We also had an 88% positive sentiment rating among those that previewed the promotion.
CFR: Can you discuss the cost for Kia Squares?
Kia: The total cost of the prize vehicles and the promotion was a small fraction of what it would have been to participate in the Super Bowl from an advertising perspective. I can’t share our exact costs and ROI numbers. I can say it was a very small fraction of what we would have spent on an ad and in return we got over 100 million impressions, 241,838 entrants and almost 250,000 people sign-up as hand-raisers. This was a way to be part of the game without being in the game.
CFR: Will there be more of these types of promotions?
Kia: This was a unique opportunity that gave us a seat at the (Super Bowl) table, so to speak. We don’t foresee it being something we will be doing on a regular basis, but to come in for five days (the February 4-9 contest entry window) and generate this much buzz and excitement for the cost, it was great. We had been doing Super Bowl ads for quite some time, and Kia Squares sounded like a terrific idea to stay present and stay visible in a cultural event that we had been a part of.
CFR: Another major promotion Kia does each year is to sponsor the New Year’s Eve ball drop in Times Square. Having done it for a few years, it must be successful. How do you measure it?
Kia: This is another one where we are able to look at impressions. We measure when people are watching the ball drop, around midnight, to see how many are going to our website and our socials, which gives us pretty tangible representation of how engaged people are. Within the first 24 hours of the ball drop we have seen a noticeable spike in Kia.com traffic that we can attribute to all the eyeballs that were on Times Square and the broadcast.
Note: The Kia prize vehicles were the 2025 EV9, Sportage, Carnival and K5. The winners resided in these cities with their Kia prize noted. EV9 GT-Line – Candler, N.C.; Sportage X-Pro SX Prestige AWD – Clarksville, Tenn.; Carnival HEV SX Prestige – St. Louis, Mo. ; and a K5 GT in El Monte, Calif.
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Story by John Faulkner. Photos and graphics by Kia.
The post Super Bowl Surprise: 2025 Kia Squares first appeared on Clean Fleet Report.
