Jackson, Lee & Barkley In Capital One’s ‘Road Trip To The Final Four’ Revival

Three big names stars – actor Samuel L Jackson, director Spike Lee and NBA legend Charles Barkley – link up for a ‘Road Trip to the Final Four’ in NCAA partner Capital One’s new campaign leveraging March Madness.

A six-spot series spearheads the sponsorship campaign for the 2016 college basketball tournament.

The first ad, ‘Best Friends’, sees the triumvirate set off for their trip (all of them dressed like Lee in day-glo green) and en route they discuss new nicknames for Barkley (eg Slam-Chunk), sing their favourite song (the annoying pina colada ‘Escape’ track) and mock the NBA star when he fails to throw change into a toll basket.

The other ads are ‘Nicknames’,

‘Change’,

‘Escape’,

‘Houston’,

and ‘Flying’.

It is further supported by a ‘Bloopers’ spot.

The campaign, which was developed in harness with agency DDB Chicago and shot by Lee, also includes fan contests to win tournament related prizes, as well as sponsoring the official NCAA March Madness bracket challenge (http://bracketchallenge.ncaa.com/) and Fional Four Fan Fest (http://www.ncaa.com/final-four/fan-fest/overview), plus social media strands led by GIFs from the commercials.

‘It’s honestly difficult to keep track of all the ad-libbing that happens when we’re filming,’ comments Daniel McCaskey, vice president of brand strategy and advertising.

‘We actually count on it when we’re writing the scripts. Letting them be natural and play off of each other creates some of the most memorable moments we capture.’

Comment

This may be a fairly standard approach to sports sponsorship activation (the road trip to the game is a common creative scene), but these stars genuinely have some chemistry – which is what lies behind this winning Final Four commercial formula.

Indeed, this four-partner is actually the second ‘Road Trip’ commercial series the trio have fronted for the bank.

Last year’s similar series, which included Barkley misreading directions to Indianapolis and instead took the trio to Annapolis, won two Clio Sports Awards.

Capital One is one of three top tier NCAA ‘Corporate Championship’ partners – along with AT&T and Coca-Cola.

Beneath this premium partnership trio, there are 14 NCAA official corporate partners.

Links:

Capital One YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/CapitalOne

Capital One Website:

https://www.capitalone.com/

Capital One Google+:

https://plus.google.com/u/1/+CapitalOne/about

NCAA March Madness:

http://www.ncaa.com/march-madness

NCAA Twitter:

https://twitter.com/ncaa

NCAA YouTube: