Friday, August 30, 2013

"How Jason Sudeikis Learned to Love the Other Football for NBC Sports"


From Adweek

Review by Kara Beckley in SRM 435 (section 1)

NBC sports took a new approach to attracting audiences to a not-so popular sport. The English Premier League has given rights to NBC for three years to broadcast and promote Fútbol. NBC is mainly watched by United States citizens, in which do not have soccer as a high sport on their list of passions. The Television Company teamed up with an ad agency out of New York, The Brooklyn Brothers. Guy Barnett is the creative director for the agency and is given much of the credit for the five minute YouTube Web film staring Jason Sudeikis.

They use Sudeikis as a newly transferred coach of English Fútbol from American Football. He is seen coaching the Tottenham Hotspur team, in an amusing and inexperienced light. The film was segmented around a sit down interview with the Coach and how he is doing with the new transition and also includes what are clips from a press conference. The goal of the film was written out by the agency but ended up becoming a improvised act by Sudeikis. The Hotspur team was able to actually be in the film while they recorded for 10 hours on two days.

The use of something extremely amusing to the audience you are trying to capture is a huge a critical piece of gold. The more serious an ad gets, the less interesting it is with the generations today, causing a lack of attention. By having humor in the mix with promotion, makes so many different audiences want to understand what is going on. It’s brilliant, and in the case of the Brooklyn Brothers and NBC Sports, it worked tremendously well. Not only did the video have seen it, also. It was shown through short clips on NBC stating “It’s Football, Just not as we know it.” Adding the humor makes the viewer intrigued to find the film on YouTube and take in the entire picture. By doing this, it adds a spark to target audiences to watch the English Premier Leagues or even just give them a slight knowledge that a largely known company such as NBC is covering it. For marketers to have the chance to show viewers of NBC shorts of the Web Film is highly successful for the reason of each viewer gaining interest and wanting to find out more about the soccer league and simple watch the amusement itself. The media aspect was very well considered with this approach. The technology era is huge and incorporating YouTube, along with a Facebook app to help understand Fútbol increases convenience for newly gained audiences. 


This article is relevant to the class because it markets a new product to a new audience in an almost effortless way. Sport marketing can be done through all various types of sports. Many ways are effective and some are not. This relates to the class in a way that shows a good marketing strategy to the technological era and gives the class a good idea of success through promotion. It is a little bit different than the typical advertisements on billboards or in magazines, and makes it unique and very practical for the future in the industry.

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Review by Brett Ireland in SRM 435 (section 1)

NBC Sports has come up with a new way to promote professional football (Fútbol) to Americans. They have taken a new approach involving comedy that they hope will draw more American fans to the game of soccer. The created a five minute video starring Jason Sudeikis as the new Head coach of the Tottenham Fútbol team, having have had no experience in the “other football.” Through mostly improvisation, Ted Lasso (Sudeikis) faces challenges of the differences between football and fútbol. In a comedic manner, Lasso learns how there is only slide tackling as opposes to tackling in football, hands are only to be used by the goalie in the goalie box, and the rule of off-sides is very challenging to comprehend. T 

The video is only five minutes in length and was originally released in short segments on television. The campaign includes a Facebook application and the video has also received millions of views on Youtube. NBC created their own audience by creating a comedic video that could appeal to wider margin of people other than current fans of Fútbol. They were not only reaching out to American soccer fans, but sports fans in general and trying to promote that while it is a different sport, it is still very entertaining. It also attracted anyone who is a fan of Saturday Night Live (SNL) and of the actor Jason Sudeikis. This campaign has showed great success because it has had so many people watch it. The main purpose of this was to make Americans more aware of and interested in professional Fútbol, and it did just that.
This article is relevant to Sport Marketing and Sales because it shows an example of a successful campaign in promoting professional Fútbol. I feel this article does a great job of introducing an innovative way to promote to different demographics. In order to run a successful sport marketing campaign, it is important to know your audience as well as what interests them. This promotion shows several things that we will learn throughout the semester including marketing plans for generating revenue and consumer behavior (the state of professional Fútbol in the United States).

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