Opportunity

Use text messaging as an everyday tool to reach Nickelodeon’s preschool parenting audience.

Nickelodeon is TV’s top destination for preschoolers and their parents, and consistently creates highly engaging, age-appropriate, educational and innovative shows. For the launch of their new television series, Dora and Friends, in August 2014, Nick wanted to find a new way to engage parents that was personal, exciting, and allowed for continuous engagement.

Text messaging is an integral part of any parent’s daily routine: whether to communicate with caregivers, family members, or anyone else involved in their child’s wellbeing. Nickelodeon viewed this as an opportunity to reach and engage their audience over a new channel.

With text messaging, Nickelodeon would be able to send different kinds of information to parents about Dora and Friends such as trivia, games, and jokes. Parents, in turn, could use the ideas to engage with their kids. However, in order to start sending these text messages, Nick first needed a way to attract parents to sign up for their mobile list.

Action

Launch a “Friendship Kit” sweepstakes to encourage parents to join the Nick Jr. mobile list and start receiving text messages.

Nickelodeon put together 500 “Friendship Kits” – activity bundles for preschoolers containing a Dora and Friends storybook, stickers, and coloring sheets- to give away to families through a sweepstakes. The sweepstakes was promoted to the Nick Jr. Fan Club email list and over social media with colorful visuals and a clear text message call to action.

To enter the sweepstakes, parents simply texted the word “FRIENDSHIP” to the shortcode 91757. After confirming their entry, parents were asked to sign up for the Nick Jr. mobile list. Parents who agreed would start receiving text messages containing engaging Nick Jr. content that encouraged them to interact with their children.

Success

Nickelodeon received over 15,000 new text message subscribers in two weeks as a result of the Dora and Friends “Friendship Kit” sweepstakes!

Within two weeks, the Nick Jr. mobile list grew exponentially. Nickelodeon received over 15,000 text message entries for their Friendship Kit sweepstakes, allowing them to rapidly gain thousands of new subscribers for their program at an extremely low cost per acquisition.

The “Friendship Kit” sweepstakes was a great incentive to get parents to sign up for the Nick Jr. mobile list, and the simple text message call to action made it incredibly easy for anyone to enter. Nickelodeon was thrilled at the success of their campaign and continues to use sweepstakes to grow their mobile list and reach more families with fun, educational content.

“We see text messaging as an opportunity to create a new touch-point with our core audience, and a platform on which we can provide real-time, short-form, and engaging content.”
–Nickelodeon