Amazon’s Prime Video hyped its new NFL Thursday Night Football programming at the start of the new football season with a comic campaign based around a freakishly long ‘New Prime Ball’ which, err, won’t really be used in official league games.
The promotional stunt, which was developed with agency Atlantic New York, introduced a new elongated ball for Thursday Night Football which promised passes of 100 yards or more thanks to advanced aerodynamics.
This piece of prank marketing, which presumably fooled no one at all, generated plenty of buzz for the 15 September debut of Thursday Night Football streaming on Prime Video: when the Kansas City Chiefs hosted the Los Angeles Chargers in the first regular-season matchup in what is an 11-year rights deal between the Amazon owned streaming service and the NFL.
The initiative was developed in partnership with Wilson, the official NFL ball provider, which actually made 33 bespoke balls just for the campaign. Indeed, these prototypes were away on social media as part of the campaign.
The digital-first campaign was led by a set of launch spots dropping from 30 August which initially set up the silly stunt and then later revealed it, inevitably, as a publicity seeking joke.
The initial ‘Thursday Night Football’s New Prime Ball | Prime Video’ spot – which claimed that ‘the game has changed’ and introduced a new ‘Wilson Football x Prime Video x NFL ball engineered EXCLUSIVELY for Thursday Night Football’ – carried the hashtag #TNFonPrime and generated 67,566 views on the streamer’s YouTube channel alone.
Athlete ambassadors – such as NFL quarterbacks Russell Wilson, Matthew Stafford, Justin Herbert, plus Richard Sherman – also got in the act via their personal platforms with content based around ‘throwing the new Prime Balls huge distances while keeping a straight face’.
This initial set up suite of creative was followed up a few days later on 1 September with a ‘The New Prime Ball For Thursday Night Football Is FAKE!’ video which stated: ‘That new Prime Ball? Totally fake. We’re not changing the football, just how you watch it. Thursday Night Football – Coming only to Prime Video on September 15th.”
The goal was primarily ‘to build trust’: with Prime Video understanding that for many, this is a new way to watch the game, but it wanted to assure them that the new Thursday Night Football experience ‘will be better than ever’ to ‘encourages them to tune in to see what the new TNF is all about’.
Prime Video’s objective was to roll out a fun marketing stunt that aimed to remind football fans, especially those hesitant about watching their favourite game via Prime Video, that we aren’t changing anything about the game – only where and how you watch it.
The agency team chose to focus on a digital-first approach spearheaded by social media tactics to drive online conversation because it understood how active football fans are across these platforms – particularly TikTok, Twitter and Instagram.
“When the news initially broke about Prime Video serving as the new home for Thursday Night Football, a lot of the chatter was about how the game would be changed forever. We decided to play into that conversation with this campaign,” explained Prime Video Global VP Of Marketing Leo Macias. “The idea was that we would create a stunt to hint that not only is Prime Video changing the way you watch the game, but we’re also changing the most important part of the game—the actual football. So, we did just that.”
“We saw a ton of engagement on TikTok – fans taking over the comments section and even creating their own videos to report on the news,” reported Macias. “We love the chatter and the buzz. The strong reactions were expected. We actually don’t see that as a negative. This is part of what made it a great, buzzed-about conversation.
The campaign was developed for a team at Amazon Prime Video which included Global Marketing VP Leo Macias, Creatives Jared Goldsmith, Evan Brady, Ricardo Franco and Angelo Maia, Creative Producers Erin Ryder, Ross Gasmer and Andy Edwards, with Director Ari Fararooy and DP William Start.
The group at creative agency Atlantic New York working on the project included ccos João Coutinho and Marco Pupo, Creatives Omar Baker, Elizabeth Cala, Dan Greener, Jessica Morford, Marcelo Romko, Patrick Conlon and Sam Simões, Strategists Gabriela Conci and Gavin May, Production Crew (VFX Video/Ball Production) Greg Jenkins, Sam Simões, Ben Bentsman and Francisco De Deus, Social Media Managers Gigi Clark and Ryan Irwin, plus managing director Suzanne Barbosa, with 3D Ball GFX by Fuze Image Maker.
Production was also handled by Ari Fararooy Productions with Producer Andrea Saavedra and a Video Edit and Post Team which included Dave Nolte (Editor Scratch Creative LA) and JD Pruess (AV Producer).
The VFX Supervisor was Ari Fararooy, with Post Producer Raquel Gonzales, Lead VFX Artist Ari Fararooy, VFX Artists Aaron Blanchard and Lauren Riccardi, CG Artists Sam Leffell, Josh Micley, Angela Gonzales and Alex Katz, plus Assistant Editor Alexa Mocley.
Comment
This fun football gag kicked-off a new broadcast era for US sports as Prime Video’s purchase of the NFL’s ‘Thursday Night Football’ media rights finally ushered in the much-predicted mainstream sports streaming era.
Might Prime Video, which boasts some 80m subscribers in the US alone, run an additional phase of this campaign might see a further limited edition set of balls used as giveaways, contest prizes or collectibles?
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