NPR Sponsorship Success: Smartwool Campaign Reaches Young Outdoor Enthusiasts

Smartwool makes high-quality merino wool socks and apparel for all kinds of outdoor adventures. With its extensive selection of audio sponsorship and a listening audience that values quality products, NPR was a natural fit. After an initial radio campaign at the local level, Smartwool expanded their relationship with NPR to include a national podcast sponsorship. By utilizing measurement tools offered by National Public Media — Podsights to measure podcast attribution, impact studies conducted by NPR, and NPM’s Campaign Intelligence Analysis service — the brand was able to gain valuable insights into the impact of their sponsorship. Their latest campaign delivered, generating a 19% lift in brand interest², and a conversion rate 147% higher than benchmark.³

Target Audience

NPR’s campaign gave Smartwool the opportunity to connect with an audience that matched their brand: young audience members that are environmentally conscious and active in the outdoors. The campaign aligned Smartwool with environmentally savvy NPR listeners:

Goals

Smartwool’s campaign goals were to increase awareness of the brand as a maker of high-quality apparel for outdoor enthusiasts, and drive traffic to the Smartwool website.

Campaign Details

Smartwool’s NPR campaign included a combination of :15 and :30 mid-rolls across a wide variety of NPR podcasts. National Public Media further tailored the plan by using audience targeting to heighten reach to nature and outdoor activity enthusiasts. An initial flight running for four(4) months delivered 11 million podcast impressions across 15 NPR podcast titles. Impact research from this first wave showed that listener interest in learning more about Smartwool was 28% higher than the NPR norm.²

From these promising initial results, Smartwool expanded their campaign for an additional six (6) months. The second wave added two additional NPR podcast titles and delivered more than 31 million impressions.

Hear some of Smartwool’s audio messages:

Results

Throughout Smartwool’s entire campaign, NPR listeners’ opinion of the brand was highly favorable. The campaign made an impact on younger audiences from ages 18-34, where 70% of the total exposed listeners said their brand opinion was positive as a result of sponsorship, +15% versus Wave 1. ²

The campaign also produced favorable results in brand interest among younger listeners. Interest in Smartwool increased in Wave 2 especially among those ages 18-34 where 7-in-10 exposed listeners said they were interested in learning more about the brand – a 19% lift compared to the previous research.²

And attribution data showed that this interest resulted in action: The NPR campaign drove listeners to the Smartwool website at a rate more than twice as high as industry benchmark, and with a significantly lower cost per visitor.³

As a brand that has been sponsoring NPR for a few years, Smartwool has had continued growth and continuous success running across NPR podcasts. With National Public Media’s guidance and expertise, Smartwool has been able to reach their ideal audience and optimize their campaigns to continue to perform efficiently in delivering brand awareness, positive opinion, and conversions.

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1. MRI-Simmons Spring 2022 Doublebase USA; 2. NPR Listener Survey, July 2022 and January 2023; 3. Podsights, 2022