Marketing and Communications

Case Study: Driving Brand Affinity Through the Seawolves Influencer PR Box

influencer pr box contents

Overview

Stony Brook University’s Marketing and Communications team launched a strategic Influencer PR Box campaign designed to transform alumni and brand partners into active brand ambassadors. By leveraging organic unboxing experiences, the initiative sought to increase top-of-funnel brand awareness and mid-funnel social proof.

 

Challenges & Opportunity

  • The "Gift vs. Gig" Balance: Encouraging influencers to post organic content without a formal paid contract.
  • Competitive Gaps: Bridging the competitive gap between public and private university marketing caused by state and federal TikTok advertising restrictions.
  • Reputation Management: Curating a list of ambassadors that aligned with the university’s brand values.

 

This matrix graphic explains the relationship between affinity and impact, where decreased affinity and impact yields low engagement and brand loyalty, while increased impact and affinity yields high engagement and high brand loyaltyStrategy

The campaign utilized an outreach strategy that maximized organic engagement and built early momentum.

By prioritizing brand loyalty over raw follower counts, the team established a foundation of "social proof" before scaling to larger audiences.

  • Affinity: Influencers were not treated as a monolith. Instead, 90+ potential partners were analyzed and divided into two primary lists based on their brand loyalty.
  • Impact: Within each affinity group, accounts were categorized into three distinct tiers based on follower count and engagement. 

 

instagram sampleMeasures of Success

Stony Brook University successfully drove profile engagement and signaled stronger brand interest to prospective students.

This modern brand awareness tactic provided the mid-funnel social proof necessary to support long-term enrollment and alumni engagement goals.

 

Engagement:

  • 59% Response Rate: Successfully contacted targeted influencers.
  • 40% Content Conversion: Nearly half of those who responded created original content.
  • High-Impact Reach: Top performing posts reached over 46,900+ views on TikTok and 24,000+ views on Instagram.
  • Sentiment Analysis: Comments like “Binghamton could never,” “The most entertaining unboxing I have seen,” and “Awesome stuff! Go Seawolves!” signaled a massive win for brand affinity.

 

Channel Growth:

  • Instagram: 1.18M total views (+7.8% YoY) and over 1,100 new followers.
  • TikTok: +19.7% audience growth and a 7.6% increase in impressions.