How Sprouts Farmers Market Leveraged NIL Athlete Deals

Sprouts Farmers Market wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Title IX and amplify their individual partnerships with the University of Texas, the University of California—Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, and Arizona State University. To do this, the brand worked with female student-athletes from Big 12 and Pac-12 schools to create fun, personable content on social media. Sprouts’ partnership with Icon Source made it easy, helping to match the brand with the right student-athletes to generate engagement.

The Story of Sprouts Farmers Market

Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Sprouts Farmers Market offers shoppers a wide selection of natural and organic foods, including fresh produce, meats, and deli items. The chain aims to provide customers with a unique shopping experience, featuring layouts that are designed to evoke the feel of a local farmer’s market, with a focus on fresh and healthy products. 

The brand has a passion for helping people eat clean and live healthier lifestyles at a price that they can truly afford. Today, the brand has grown to over 380 locations with 31,000 employees. Sprouts’ commitment to providing exceptional customer service continues to bring in happy shoppers seven days a week.

Finding the Right Student-Athletes

Sprouts needed a unique way to roll out its celebration of Title IX and announce its support of women’s athletics. Through a partnership with Icon Source, 50 female athletes were chosen to create a piece of content to share with their followers. The guidelines were simple: Film an honest review and rating of their favorite bulk items or capture themselves playing their sport at a Sprouts location. 

Sprouts focused its search on athletes that were aligned with store locations or target markets and able to capture content at their local Sprouts or at home cooking the item of their choice.

The Results

Let’s begin with Sprouts’ Title IX campaign, which reached over 1 million people and generated an impressive engagement rate.

  • Total Number of Posts: 50 
  • Total Impressions: 1,086,931
  • Total Engagements: 22,436
  • Average Engagement Rate: 2.06%
  • Average CPM: $26.23
  • Average CPE: $0.78

Next, through the school partnerships campaign, Sprouts generated nearly 100,000 video views and saw 5,395 total engagements. 

Maya Brady, a softball player at UCLA, chose to review the pumpkin-flavored yogurt-dipped pretzels, trail mix, and peanut butter pretzels. 

  • One In-Feed Post 
  • Total Views: 52,700
  • Total Engagements: 2,470
  • Engagement Rate: 4.6%

Audrey & Nicole Nourse, beach volleyball players at USC, went in a different direction. Their video featured shots of the two playing their sport and even included a cameo of a Sprouts team member. 

  • One In-Feed Post
  • Total Views: 11,900
  • Total Engagements: 984
  • Engagement Rate: 8.3%

Looking to See Similar Results?

At Icon Source, we believe in the power of athlete influencers to grow brands of all sizes. If you’re looking to leverage our network of student-athlete ambassadors, we’ll help you craft a strategy that matches your vision. Sign up now!

Chase Garrett

More Resources

Find More Information at Our Resource Hub

SEE RESOURCE HUB
crossmenuchevron-down linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram