Kornacki Demonstrates How Brands Can Benefit From Influencers Featured In Sports Content

BY ADAM GROSSMAN

MSNBC and NBC News political correspondent Steve Kornacki is best known for two things - analyzing election returns in front of a touchscreen MAP of the U.S. and the signature clothing he wears on television. His appearance on Sunday Night Football, however, is particularly notable given how his successful crossover into sports helped Gap drive tangible business results.

Kornacki’s “charismatic — albeit slightly frenetic” style that has made him popular with viewers was on full display during the most recent U.S. elections in early November. The uncertainty of the 2020 Presidential election results in particular put Kornacki in front of the election map and viewers for a longer period of time than usual.

Kornacki and NBC parlayed this success into at least two segments on NBC’s “Football Night in America” (FNA) last Sunday. Kornacki analyzed the NFL playoff picture and examined different teams’ paths to the postseason using his trademark approach.

Kornacki is not the first non-endemic sports influencer that we have highlighted in these posts. Both the New York Jets and Washington Nationals have leveraged influencers that have resonated with their audiences to drive fan engagement.

Kornacki is the latest example showing the potential ROI of this approach. We used our Audience Inference Platform (AIP) to examine the organic conversations of Kornacki’s followers and created a wordcloud to highlight the top-100 keywords that emerged from our analysis.

We found that 14 of the top 100 keywords had to do with the NFL and this did not just include the teams that were playing on Sunday Night Football (SNF) last week. Keywords included jets, steelers, philadelphia, arizona, rodgers, bears, giants, chiefs, patriots, browns, mahomes, titans, and eagles.

Kornacki’s appearance had a direct impact for NBC. According to Front Office Sports AM Newsletter last Tuesday, “On Twitter alone, NBC’s four Kornacki ‘Sunday Night Football’ posts have generated about four million impressions, more than 800,000 video views and 283,200 engagements in their first 24 hours — a ‘massive response,’ according to a spokesperson.”

Kornacki had a similar impact for Gap as well. The company reported “a
‘dramatic increase’ in web traffic and sales as fans flocked to get Kornacki’s signature khaki pants in the days following the election.”

Kornacki’s impact on Gap is particularly noteworthy as it is potentially an evolution in influencer strategy when it comes to sponsorship. Both the Jets and Nationals were focused on using non-endemic influencers to drive engagement with their audience (in this case fans). NBC achieved that benefit as well with its core audience (in this case viewers).

However, Kornacki’s FNA appearance also had a direct impact on a new audience – Gap customers that are also football fans. More specifically, NBC generated a spike in sales and web traffic by placing a non-endemic influencer into a sports broadcast.

We often receive questions from current and potential clients about the best ways to activate influencer marketing. A key component of our Influencer Analysis Platform is to analyze organic audience conversation for an influencer’s followers to determine how and where to activate.

This is a good example of how this approach can be implemented. More specifically, placing a non-endemic influencer in an organic sports context is a great way to drive consumer behavior and engagement as NBC did with Kornacki and Gap.

To clarify, we did not know if NBC strategically considered the impact that Kornacki’s FNA appearance could have on GAP. However, the strategy of taking a non-endemic influencer and generating sports content in ways that directly impact audience engagement should be a strategic consideration for buyers and sellers of sports sponsorships going forward.