Well it was a good run, Quicken Loans and Warren Buffett; but after just two full days of March Madness (for real though, complete madness) all 11 million brackets are deemed "imperfect." Honestly though, you have to be some sort of psychic to call Duke, Ohio State, and Cincinnati losing right out of the gate. Also, who would have thought that Kansas, Villanova, and Syracuse would lose the very next round? Okay, I'll be honest, I did call Cuse losing but definitely none of the others. This year is nuts! Only three #1, two #2s, one #3, and four #4s remain in the Sweet 16 (maybe they should call it lucky number 4). No wonder everyone is out before they even felt a slight chance of hope. It only took 21 games for everyone to be eliminated.
(No. 14 Mercer celebrates their 78-71 win over No. 3 Duke)
Enough ranting about how permanently in shock, slightly angered I am at this year's NCAA Tournament, I must take a second to compliment the true marketing strategy of Quicken Loans and all other companies who help feed our love of bracketed competition. Quicken Loans has been trending for weeks as the Billion Dollar Bracket Buzz only grew leading up to the official kick-off. Other companies such as Audi and Best Buy have also taken advantage of competition, by creating there own prize winning brackets. The catch? Just provide them your email so they can forever span you with notifications on their latest products. Many people look past this little check however and these companies have taken advantage of March Madness fans. I know I personally have 4 brackets in multiple groups, why? Because I love the feeling when my team is in the green and I am beating all my friends.
(George Washington's 66-71 loss to Memphis ended the last 3 perfect brackets Friday, March 21st)
I will leave you with one final glimpse of hope! Although Quicken Loans will not be giving away $1 billion this time around, the top 20 scores will each be receiving a hefty prize of $100,000. So do not throw away your brackets just yet fans, it is not the end until Florida wins! (disclaimer: this is the only time in my life I will ever support Florida)
There is a lot of hype generating around this year's NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Tournament, otherwise know as "March Madness." Last year, over $1.5 billion was generated in TV ad revenue for the nearly month long event. Revenues this year are expected to far surpass those of 2013. Large companies are now rallying around the event that brings together college basketball fans from all over the country to cheer on the best 64 teams in the nation.
Anheuser-Busch is famously known for its all inclusive, full brand experience hotels, Bud Light Hotels, that it rents out for Superbowl fans each year. Well that tradition is now moving to March Madness. Anheuser-Busch has rented out a hotel in Dallas for four days around the final rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
(An outside look of the Bud lLght Hotel from Superbowl XLVI)
Other major marketing efforts seen at large scale sporting events are also being implemented into March Madness. Coke Zero and AT&T have teamed up to provide concerts everyday while the tournament is in Dallas. A March Madness specific app has even been created for fans to keep up with all the action taking place.
The tournament is sure to spark a lot of talk and it provides the perfect opportunity for companies to promote their brands for nearly an entire month! That is a winning situation if you ask me, I know I will be watching.
So I was reminded today about one of my FAVORITE things that exist on the internet.. Bad Lip Readings. If you have never seen these, seriously you are missing out! They honestly never get old and they are the ultimate form of free publicity.
Like many great videos on YouTube, they get shared over and over and rack up millions of views. So how does this tie into marketing? Word of mouth! These videos are being shared to all over social media and are reaching people in ways a company just can't do.
So how does this relate to sports? Well Bad Lip Reading makes a variety of different videos, from Twilight to The Hunger Games to my personal favorite, the NFL. This honestly has just made me love sports that much more. You always see athletes on TV talking and yelling, but until now I have never known what they said. Bad Lip Reading is there to help and boy does it! The original video itself has racked up over 50,000,000 views on YouTube and has been shared too many times to keep track of. I personally have shown every one of my friends the video. A new NFL related Bad Lip Reading was released less than a month ago and has already racked up over 18,000,000 views on YouTube. That is a lot of free publicity for the NFL. Fox Sports even posted the latest video on their website, now that is serious. Just think if companies got on board with this and let the people at Bad Lip Reading remake some of their commercials. Boom. More impressions made for your company to people who may have never been reached before (just a thought).
Keep it coming Bad Lip Reading. I just can't get enough. Below I have put up the current NFL Bad Lip Readings for your viewing enjoyment.
So I tend to write a lot about football (bet you can't guess my favorite sport) so I decided to dedicate this blog to something different. In the middle of my next football related post, an ad game on that really interested me. It was Samsung's new ad that included families watching and reenacting highlights of the Olympic Games together. I loved it! It was adorable seeing little kids aspiring to be the next Olympic great. So I decided to think a little more about what social media has really done for this Olympic Games and came up with 3 main things.
1. #SochiProblems
As many of you have seen over the last week or so, Sochi has had a few problems for the arriving guests all over the world and people were not afraid to speak up about it. Sochi Problems became a twitter sensation overnight and has over 341,000 followers! Sochi Problems has definitely created buzz for the Olympic Games but maybe not in the way Russia would have originally wanted.
2. All the Crazy Faces
Maybe my favorite part of all the social media buzz is the snapshots of crazy faces Olympic athletes make mid-routine. I have been cracking up non-stop watching these blow up my newsfeed and honestly it has made me want to watch some events I may normally not be interested in (ice skating) more just so I can catch a glimpse of the next crazy face.
(perhaps my favorite one: Yakov Godorozha of Ukraine)
3. Same Superstars, New Perspective (Sochi Selfies)
Perhaps my favorite part about the Olympic Games is all of the heartwarming, underdog hero stories. I eat that stuff up! Social has allowed for all athletes from decorated medalists to crowd favorites to provide their new fans with raw emotion. Many athletes have tweeted emotions and "instagrammed selfies" to give fans a personal look into the Games. Every year there are superstars, but it makes them that much more lovable when you get to see a little bit of the personality behind the medal!
(A few Canadian curlers after a long day)
As the Olympics comes to a close this weekend, let us salute the good, the bad, and the hilarious of Sochi 2014!
This past week included one of the most exciting times for a college football fan, National Signing Day! This day is the only thing that keeps the ultimate fan breathing during the off-season. Who could blame them? The future fate of a college's success seems as if it lies in the hands of these kids. Coming from a recruiting background, I understand the obsession with tracking of an athlete in hopes that he will sign with your program. At the same time, social media has taken the day to an all new level.
(class rankings after 2014 NSD)
Before the rise of social media, recruiting was kept under the radar with only a few reliable sources available for people to gain access (rivals.com and scout.com). With the increasing release of social media sites, people can now gain information about a player by stalking his Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or any other social site he has presence in. We know the recruits every thought, football related or not, as well as have the opportunity to harass them first hand. This has lead to new rules in recruiting and understandably so; with all the new outlets of communication it makes the recruiting process that much harder to control and keep fair.
(ESPN covered National Signing Day all day both on TV and online)
Football recruits now have to "market" themselves on social media sites in order to please overbearing fan bases; everything is public for fans to see and they definitely take notice. Constant harassment has become common to the top recruits in the nation as signing day approaches each year. Each player is making one of the biggest decisions of his life in deciding where to carry on his football career, yet we make that decision so much harder. This past signing day, top recruit Rashaan Evans picked Alabama over hometown favorite Auburn; fans were furious with his unexpected flip and have been harassing Evans ever since. Don't we think this is getting out of hand? Evans picked the program he felt he should play at and yet instead of being supportive of the player, fans lashed out and have been hateful. However, I do not speak for all fans of a particular program, as many fans do not act in in such a harsh way. Many fans praised Evans for picking the school he wanted and congratulated him; unfortunately the few that have been hateful are the ones making headlines.
(Evans in a recent interview regarding his life post-NSD)
So what is National Signing Day REALLY becoming? Is it "College Football Christmas" or has social media and a few bitter fans made the day a signing recruit's worst nightmare?
Although Malcom Smith is a well deserved MVP for the Seattle Seahawks domination over the Denver Broncos on Sunday, the game was not the event making buzz. Even with the lack luster combination of football and advertising, Sunday's Super Bowl set a record with the audience reaching 111.49 million (surpassing 111.35 million viewers from 2012 Super Bowl against the Giants and Patriots). Fox even stated that the game had more viewers than "any other television program in US history." Pretty anti-climatic outcome for all those viewers if you ask me. However while many considered the ads dull, major corporations turned to a new form of advertising that I had expected to see this year, a tie between social media and traditional marketing.
According to CNN money, 57% of Super Bowl commercials featured hashtags. Many companies made the right choice by getting on the hashtag bandwagon; over 25.3 million tweets related to the Super Bowl happened over the course of the game. Personally, there were two advertising MVPs for this game.
1. Esurance (#EsuranceSave30)
This genius commercial aired just after the game with a simple promise to save people money on insurance. They proved this and generated buzz by promising to give away all the money they had saved by purchasing the first ad after the SuperBowl, a whopping $1.5 million to one lucky tweeter. As of yesterday, over 2 million tweets have included the #EsuaranceSave30. Keep expecting to see this continue until Wednesday night when the winner is revealed on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Esurance did a fantastic job of integrating the traditional Super Bowl advertising with the growing social media outlet. However, does this mean that more people will switch to Esurance? Only time will tell but one thing is for sure, Esurance definitely generated buzz!
2. Chevrolet ("Life")
This is not the traditional ad one would have expected to see at the Super Bowl. Most companies are all about creating clever commercials to be shared over and over between friends and family, however, Chevrolet decided to invoke emotion to get the attention of consumers and I love it! They made us cry, relate, understand their message and most of all they made us want to do more. Chevrolet teamed up with the American Cancer Society and created the #PurpleYourProfile campaign to not only increase brand awareness but inspire "facebookers" to get involved. How could you not take the call to action and purple your profile in honor of World Cancer Day? Better yet, Chevrolet will donate $1 for every purple profile up to $1 million. I felt like part of a group and purpose yesterday when I saw all the purple profile pictures and that was exactly the goal Chevrolet and the American Cancer Society had in mind. Chevrolet raised cancer and brand awareness with perfectly subtle advertising.
There were many other noteworthy competitors, but to me personally these two took the MVP awards. I'll let you be the judge of your favorites.
As I was scrolling through my Twitter news feed last night I came across a very interesting tweet from one of my friends. It said: "Twitter is like one big family watching TV together." Wow. I had never thought of it like that but it was completely accurate. My feed consisted of comments about everything from the Grammys to the final runs of the X Games to The Bachelor Wedding. Even though I personally was watching the X Games, I knew exactly what was going on in the Grammys when Kendrick Lamar and Imagine Dragons killed it on stage and Daft Punk won every award; simultaneously I knew all of Catherine's vows from The Bachelor Wedding. Everyone had an opinion and I knew them all, as if I was sitting right beside them watching each show.
(trends from January 26th)
Today Twitter has become a major source to keep up with the latest and greatest things going on in the world. If something gets trending, you will be sure to know about it within minutes of happening. The reason Twitter has done so well is because of the concept of the "live feed." As it happens, you see every reaction and update in real-time.
My Twitter feed personally is full of game scores, the latest recruiting statuses, and a plethora of coaching changes. This is where I look to get the most updated information when I don't have time to look up full stories online. Every team, agency, venue, and player seems to have an account today; this is how they stay connected with the fan base. This brief interactions with players are more personal than just reading a story or seeing them on TV.
(fans reach out to football player Orson Charles for his birthday)
The sport industry has caught on to the power of marketing through Twitter. I look forward to seeing the continuation of highlights, fan interactions, and quick headlines. Look out for next week when I tie this Sunday's Super Bowl buzz to Twitter.
