Burton Snowboards knows how to leverage ambassadors to grow brand engagement. The company is distinct among sports brands: the company helped forge the very sport it serves. Born from the visionary mind of late founder and snowboard pioneer Jake Burton Carpenter, the company boasts a global footprint and community of passionate snowboarding enthusiasts.
In 2020, Burton established a new brand ambassador program alongside its thriving professional Team Rider program. The company’s digital team wanted to tap into the rising influence of social media and authentic stories from everyday snowboarders through their original videos and photos.
Greenfly’s digital media flow management system helped the marketers transform their communication with these athletes and influencers and elevate the stories they told. The collaborative workflow made it easy for the Burton team to expand brand engagement and reach to engage new audiences and create deeper connections with avid snowboarders.
100% of Burton ambassadors activated to exchange digital media
By the numbers:
- 800 media assets uploaded by ambassadors
- +16% YoY growth in Burton Instagram channel social posts*
Brand ambassadors created and filmed original stories for distribution on Burton’s brand channels using the Greenfly mobile app. Their first-hand photo and video narratives highlighted the adventurous snowboarding lifestyle and adjacent sports for year-round customer engagement, They also enhanced brand content during the early global pandemic, when on-location product shoots were restricted. And with Greenfly Engage+, Burton launched multiple UGC campaigns. Greenfly simplified rights management for all collected content.
“Before Greenfly, we were using a scrappy blend of services including emails, Instagram DMs, texts and file transfers. This meant a lot of wasted time and effort simply getting the content we needed into the right hands.” — Sara Jacobi, Global Content Marketing Strategist, Burton Snowboards
With this program’s success, Burton and its brand ambassadors continue to push the sport, culture and community of snowboarding ever forward. And Burton’s brand ambassadors keep building brand engagement as a core part of their growth strategy.
Sources: Greenfly; *Burton, versus the prior six-month period. All data from January 1, 2021 – June 30, 2021.
Photo: Courtesy of Burton Snowboards
