The link-in-bio company has a history of getting out of bios and onto billboards—and for one of its latest campaigns, it’s also linking up with a major athlete.
For a series of ads in Times Square this month, Linktree, the tool that lets users compile social media profiles and other links in one landing page, is working with Golden State Warriors point guard and Olympic gold medalist Stephen Curry.
Professional athletes might not be the first group of people that come to mind as major users of the link-in-bio landing page, but Curry’s various business and personal ventures make him a prime candidate for taking advantage of the tool, Lara Cohen, SVP of marketing, partnerships, and business development at Linktree, said.
“There’s a utility for creators of all size and scale,” Cohen told Marketing Brew. “Obviously, the ‘Get Ready With Me’ girlies see the value in having the link in bio for all the many things that they’re selling, doing, all their different social content, but for someone like Steph, who really is multifaceted…He really is just a best-in-class example of the benefits of Linktree.”
Currying favor: Cohen said that she and the Linktree team had been in touch with Curry’s team for a long time before they found the right way to activate together, and Linktree has wanted to make the partnership happen for a while. As a four-time NBA champion and two-time league MVP, Curry is used to seeing “massive social traffic,” Cohen said, and her team wanted to wait for just the right time to use him in a Linktree campaign.
That moment came when the USA Basketball Men’s Olympic Team, on the back of a historic performance from Curry, won the gold medal in Paris, after which Curry’s social traffic and engagement were especially high. By using Linktree, Cohen said, Curry would be able to redirect some of that traffic to his other endeavors, which include Under Armour’s Curry Brand, his lifestyle brand Underrated, the comedy show Mr. Throwback on Peacock, the Eat. Learn. Play foundation he co-founded with his wife Ayesha Curry, and SC30, the company that manages his off-court business portfolio, for which he serves as CEO.
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“It was really just about finding the right moment that worked for them and worked for us, and luckily those things coincided,” she said.
Link on billboard: During the week of Sept. 2, Linktree ran a billboard campaign in Times Square highlighting a different one of Curry’s ventures each day—everything from Underrated’s golf division to a graphic novel about his life. The campaign is meant to leverage Curry’s reach and popularity to drive new sign-ups and use of Linktree’s pro features that require a paid subscription, Cohen said.
The collaboration with Curry isn’t a paid deal, according to Cohen; instead, it revolves around the fact that he’s a Linktree user. That’s in line with some of the brand’s other out-of-home campaigns:
- Earlier this year, it featured several creators in Times Square as part of its “All Together on Linktree” campaign, which marked its first OOH push.
- The brand used Times Square billboards again to spotlight artists around the Grammys, and also worked with Billie Eilish for a campaign that included a billboard tied to the release of her latest album.
“I love a good, classic out-of-home [campaign],” Cohen said. “The juxtaposition of something that very much lives online [with] bringing it to life in out-of-home, I think, is a nice way to tell a story.”
PSA: On the heels of the Curry campaign, Linktree teamed up with Vote.org to create the Linktree Voter Registration Hub, which helps people in the US register to vote or check their registration status. Curry is also a part of that initiative, and he joins a roster of other celebrities and creators like singer Olivia Rodrigo and Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis-Woodhall, who are directing people to the hub through their Linktree profiles.
“There’s always an underlying brand awareness play to anything that we do,” Cohen said. “Seeing the size and scale and range of different creators who are activating here tells a great story for Linktree, but ultimately, this is really about us participating and making it easy…to participate in the election this year.”