NCAA sponsor AT&T is rolling out an integrated March Madness campaign promoting its DirecTV tournament streaming service and centered around comic reworkings of the famous Aerosmith hit ‘I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing’.
The various creative assets in a campaign developed with agency BBDO’s New York and Atlanta offices are led by a set of TV commercials featuring comedian Dan Finnerty: the star of The Hangover and Old School belts out the song to basketball fans in places where it seems they are unable to follow the hoops unless they have DirecTV
The message is straightforward: with AT&T’s DirecTV service you can stream March Madness games via the Bracket App on a variety of devices and not have to miss a game.
In one of a series of TV commercials (debuting on 16 March), called ‘Sales Review’, a woman is stuck in a sales review meeting when Finnery informs her of the service (via song) and hands her a tablet to watch the game.
The tune is the same, but the song lyrics have been tweaked to reflect the sales pitch scenario.
Other TV commercials in the series, also feature broadcaster Greg Gumbel, apply the same song-related approach to various different scenarios – including ‘Parking Booth’ (posted on 12 March)
and on-air features including ‘Head’ (first appearing on 14 March)
and ‘Snack’ (on 18 March)
and a DirecTV commercial rolling out on 21 March.
All of the spots aim to drive viewers to www.directv.com for details on how to avoid missing key games by streaming live NCAA March Madness games on mobile devices with DirecTV from AT&T.
The commercials’ creative continues across the brand’s digital and social channels such as Facebook,
and Twitter.
What’s your best #MarchMadness sick out excuse so you #DontMissAThing? #ATTInfluencer pic.twitter.com/LrIbyqNPJm
— Paul Pabst (@PaulPabst) March 18, 2017
Plus, additional comic content pieces amplify the brand’s rights on its social platforms.
These include comic clips such as ‘March Madness Bracketology With Paul Pabst’.
Pabst, a well known comic from the Dan Patrick Show, interviews college students to expose their March Madness bracket strategies.
and in ‘March Madness School Excuses with Paul Pabst’ he asks college kids how they get out of school so they #DontMissAThing
these are further supported socially by the brand’s real-time and low-latency game-related social media output
#BracketBusted! Another upset as #SouthCarolina takes down #Duke. pic.twitter.com/zqhN8toz7g
— AT&T (@ATT) March 20, 2017
What a comeback! It's #Michigan over #Louisville. We're going to need a replay. #DontMissAThing pic.twitter.com/MITMTh95tV
— AT&T (@ATT) March 19, 2017
Activative Comment:
The campaign approach and tone seems appropriately goofy for March Madness marketing.
It is also a campaign that tactically aims to (and succeeds in) featuring a repetitive tune that consumers just can’t get out of their heads (whether or not they want it to).
The campaign follows previous March Madness themed campaigns such as 2015’s ‘Legends’ campaign led by Shaquille O’Neal,
and last year’s live streaming led efforts which included a spot featuring an employee watching the game at work
and executions starring Kenny Smith.
It also follows on the heels BBDO’s ‘Everywhere’ spot for DirecTV in January, its first post-merger effort for the now AT&T-owned brand, which took a similar approach to the famous Rocky soundtrack tune.
Links:
AT&T
https://www.youtube.com/user/ShareATT
https://www.instagram.com/att/
https://plus.google.com/u/0/111315125550019591892
http://soc.att.com/LinkedInATT
http://soc.att.com/PinterestATT
http://soc.att.com/TumblrATT
BBDO
NCAA
http://www.ncaa.com/march-madness
