Background: In October 2009, professional golfer Bubba Watson entered into a social media partnership with the nation’s largest independent tire distributor, Discount Tire. The agreement was to support one another over the two-week timeframe of the partnership exclusively on social media channels that included Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It also included a physical visit by Bubba Watson to a Discount Tire location.

Approach: The preliminary stages of the partnership included Digital Royalty naturally integrating both brand’s respective social media presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Next steps involved a viral video shoot, a Tweet-up ticket giveaway at a Discount Tire location, an autograph session at a golf tournament solely promoted through social media outlets, a Twitter based Q-and-A session and an online autographed card given away by both parties via social channels.

Results: With isolation of the two-week partnership, Digital Royalty was able to measure and compare Discount Tire’s audience share and fan engagement on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, to growth in weeks leading up to and following the partnership. Highlights of the case study included across-the-board ecosystem growth of Discount Tire and Bubba Watson’s respective ecosystems, positive sentiment increases, tapping of new audiences and interconnectivity represented in the percent-share of one another’s ecosystem.