Fox’s Edgy Tecchy 'VR & Drone' US Open Campaign: Biggest Golf Promo Ever

Led by a phased series of on-air promotions that aim to mix ‘edgy and tecchy’ and ‘reverence’ and supported across multiple media platforms, Fox Sports’ claims its $15m US Open campaign is ‘the biggest promotional push in the history of golf’s US Open’

The official broadcaster’s multifaceted marketing blitz ran before and during the 2015 US Open – Fox’s first tournament since it signed a 12-year, $1.2bn rights deal – which took place at Chambers Bay (Washington) between 18 and 21 June.

With the size of the broadcaster’s gargantuan investment, little wonder it started its promotional campaign well before the tournament began and also kept the marketing dial turned up right through the event.

In fact, the promotional work began way back in January 2014 during Fox’s coverage of the NFL’s NFC Championship game with a fairly classic creative approach.

The core phase of the pre-tournament work then began rolling out in early May – across the Fox family of stations and on CNN, History, Discovery and Comedy Central – using a ‘history awaits’ tagline with teasers such as ‘Anthem’,

and Flag.

The commercials airing closer to the tee-off aimed to balance a ‘reverence’ for the tournament with a sense of ‘edginess’.

Thus, in addition to spots reflecting more mainstream and traditional golf creative such as 2 June’s Rickey Fowler fronted ‘Ultimate Test’,

and 10 June’s 115^th Open course-focused ‘Chambers Bay’,

It also ran more innovative creative such as the comic ‘Caddie Rescue’ spots that saw caddies surprise strangers in Seattle based street stunts.

Fox also threw in some innovative and futuristic technologies into its live tournament broadcast courtesy of its Fox Labs unit – a division created to explore technical partnerships that will provide viewers a fresh perspective (and offer its ad sales teams more ways to target viewers with brand integrations).

Fox will also use some virtual reality cameras on the course which the network says will be the first live, multi-camera VR broadcast experience in history. There will also be tower cams, multiple tee cams and hole microphones.

‘We have had people shooting with drones, helicopters and on the ground. We will have every angle of that areas and that golf course covered,’ explains Fox coordinating producer Mark Loomis.

‘We are going to try and do a lot of things there to make the viewer feel like they are playing the golf course right in front of them,” Loomis adds. “We’re trying to get some dimensions to the greens, increase the audio from the course, and give you a better look of what the shot looks like to the golfer from the golfer’s view. The technology is part of the experience.’

The telecast itself featured hole microphones, tee- and tower-cams, aerial drones (and pre-produced hole-by-hole drone footage)

as well as inventions and gimmicks ranging from ‘remote control camera cars’ for ground level perspective and live ‘virtual reality’ cameras,

to a Golf Network live stream.

The huge campaign stretched far beyond TV, with content and executions also running across digital, print, radio and out-of-home signage.

Video promos and ads ran on sports websites including Sports Illustrated and Sporting News and there were hefty social media buys on major platforms including Facebook and Twitter.

In the lead-up period, print ads ran in Golf Digest, The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, while full page executions appeared in national and major regional newspapers on the first day (Thursday) of the tournament itself.

Plus there was out-of-home signage in New York’s Times Square and at major spaces stretching from Los Angeles to Seattle/Tacoma International Airport (an hour from the Chambers Bay course).

Other elements of the campaign saw Fox sign up composer/conductor Brian Tyler (who has written the soundtracks to more than 70 movies) to write the ‘official soundtrack’

Comment

Responding to those critics concerned Fox was tampering with traditional golf coverage, Buck said:

‘What a boring world it would be if changing things up was so frowned upon that they were scared to do it. In 1994, everyone freaked out about Fox putting the score in the corner of the screen. If we are going to go into this event worrying what the traditional golf fan thinks, we’re dead. Fresh eyes, a fresh perspective, a little energy and looking at the same format from a different angle are good things’.

Fox certainly put some creative thinking and fresh technology alongside a $15m investment in the campaign to try and ensure its inaugural US Open golf coverage was a ratings winner for the network and its advertisers.

And no wonder – after all, it has spent a massive sum of money on a 12-year broadcast rights deal with a sport that is not just suffering from the decline of its Tiger Woods star player pillar, but also one that has seen a decade-long decline in player numbers and continued course closures.

Fox won the rights bidding war to the four USGA tournaments (beating NBC and ESPN) with what has been reported as a staggering $1.2bn offer for the 12 year deal.

That’s $100m each year – an amount which dwarfs the previous $37m per year that NBC and ESPN were together combining to pay during the previous deal.

So the stakes are certainly high.

After all, last year’s final round of the U.S. Open on NBC drew only 4.6 million viewers, down from 8.4 million in 2013.

Fox may have had the comfort of Woods competed in the 2015 tournament, but he was a shadow of the player who was once such a mammoth attraction for both viewers and commercial partners.

The network pre-empted its primetime entertainment programming on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights to televise the Open – the first time any broadcast network televised the US Open for four nights consecutively in primetime.

According to the broadcaster itself, it seems advertisers responded to the campaign and the on-air strategy.

Fox said that the four days and 38.5 hours of live on-course coverage on Fox and Fox Sports 1 sold out pre-tournament – other than the handful of slots held back for ‘late buyers’ and/or ‘as-you-go makegoods’.

All four major USGA sponsors – American Express, IBM, Lexus and Rolex – bought commercial time too (reportedly the first time all four made network buys in the same tournament).

Other big marketing investors during Fox’s US Open telecast included Anheuser-Busch, Chrysler, DirecTV, Charles Schwab, Microsoft, Workday, Titleist and Callaway.

And reports suggest that most of these advertisers bought packages that just for The US Open, but also for the three other big USGA events which Fox and FS1 are televising this summer – the US Senior Open Championship, the US Women’s Open Championship and the US Amateur Championship

Take note Sky Sports, the new broadcast partner of The Open (after 60 years in harness with the BBC).

Links

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