The NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks have been impressive on social during the no-basketball lockdown that they have achieved ‘digital parity during the league’s pandemic hiatus largely by pivoting a digital content strategy focused on ‘youth’ and ‘community’.
This strategy was based around the team’s new ‘BucksPlay’ (https://www.nba.com/bucks/play)content hub as the key driver of fan engagement during the pandemic.
Launched in early April, a few weeks after the NBA suspended all games in mid March, BucksPlay was designed to keep fans engaged during the lockdown by offering behind-the-scenes footage, season rewinds, player lifestyle features and one-on-one player interviews all focused on younger fans and told through the lens of community.
The platform is split into zones – Kids Zone, Fans Zone, Neighbourhood Zone – and spans features such as Bucks Fashion Police and Bucks Mean Tweets.
One stand-out recent ‘BucksPlay’ initiatives was the ‘PC Fan Dunk Challenge’ fronted by shooting guard Pat Connaughton. Launched with a call-to-action video asking for fans to submit their own best at-home lockdown dunks, the team received more than 100 responses.
The initiative closed with a further spot showcasing the best dunk, thanking fans for participating and urging them to stay tuned for the next challenge at Bucks.com/Play.
Other recent BucksPlay examples range from a recent Instagram catch-up with two-time All-Star guard Khris Middleton,
to personalised fan wallpapers,
Want a custom jersey wallpaper!?!
Reply to this tweet with your name and number and we’ll randomly select 100 fans to get that new lock screen!!#WallpaperWednesday pic.twitter.com/vXgRwCjByg
— Milwaukee Bucks (at home) (@Bucks) May 20, 2020
team-themed kids activity downloads
Help the kids find @BucksBango!!
Download and print kids activities at https://t.co/57nPOIHsEk pic.twitter.com/3KJoMEAnbO
— Milwaukee Bucks (at home) (@Bucks) May 18, 2020
and ‘The Last Word’ contests between two players.
In the coming weeks, BucksPlay will introduce a new, remote ‘driveway drills’ hosted by Bucks coaches, as well as expanding beyond just basketball through offering arts and crafts content for young fans being home-schooled (as well as challenges like the Recess Challenge and the mascot based Challenge Bango)..
The community and youth content strategy has seen the Bucks sustain social engagement consistent to levels witnessed before the NBA’s coronavirus-enforced shutdown – something confirmed by the team’s Chief Marketing Officer Dustin Godsey.
While traffic on the team’s website and mobile app dropped, the new BucksPlay content hub has been a key driver for fan engagement through the pandemic.
“We went dark for a couple of days after [shutdown] while trying to get a sense of what’s going on and what the right tone was,” he recalled. “For us, it was then about looking at where we want to be from a content side and how we want to tell stories.
“On the social side, engagements have been pretty consistent to what we normally see during the season,” said Godsey. “There was a drop off at the very beginning – I think people weren’t wanting to be entertained – but, as we kind of went through it, people are now looking for and craving content. On the content side, we’ve been really happy with where that is. BucksPlay has been a good way to silo some of this and get a good sense of what’s working and what isn’t.”
Godsey states that fans are still engaging with start player Giannis Antetokounmpo highlights, as well as silly in-arena features, but are also spend more time on the things that are important, practical and useful.
Indeed, Godsey believes that the platform could even have an effect on the wider in-arena experience when games do resume: “We want [BucksPlay] to be our guidepost for how we move forward on the content side, and also in-arena in the types of stories we’re telling. For us, that moves into the conversation of how we present this content, moving forward. We need to start acting a little bit more like a content producer and a content brand as opposed to just the basketball side.”
Links:
Milwaukee Bucks
https://www.nba.com/bucks/play
https://www.youtube.com/user/bucksdotcom
https://www.instagram.com/bucks/
https://www.facebook.com/milwaukeebucks
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.