Beats By Dre has packed in a whole lot of Oakland into its new 30-second commercial featuring Golden State Warriors’ star Draymond Green and leveraging interest in the NBA Playoffs
In fact, this campaign is partly a mini love letter to the Bay Area (home of the current NBA champs and regular season record breaking Warriors) and part music video (it also stars E-40 and its soundtrack is the rapper’s 10-year-old ‘Tell Me When To Go’ track).
The spot, part of Beats’ B [Ready] campaign, opens with Green preparing for his next match beside a striking view of the Golden Gate Bridge. As he starts his pre-game prep, he dials up the anthem on his phone and the creative shots switch to black and white as the basketball star and E-40 move through the city towards the team’s arena.
When they arrive at the Oracle Arena in Oakland the creative returns to full colour.
The ad also sees cameos from Green’s Warriors teammates Shaun Livingston, Ian Clark and Brandon Rush – all wearing T-shirts with ‘The Bay’ printed on the chest.
Plus, former NBA players and Oakland residents Gary Payton and Brian Shaw make brief appearances.
The ad comes complete with a supporting behind-the-scenes web film in which Green describes what B [Ready] means to him – ‘Be ready is simply getting yourself in the mindset to win’.
It is also backed by plenty of social support both on Beats’ own channels as well as on those belonging to a set of media owners and influencers too.
Behind scenes footage of @Money23Green commercial shoot for @beatsbydre. Check out Green's diary on @TheUndefeated. pic.twitter.com/RRsU68ZhG0
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpearsESPN) May 18, 2016
Comment
If there’s a major sporting event happening somewhere, particularly one with a dash of cool credibility, then you can be sure Beats are going to be activating around it with an ambush campaign.
And the NBA Playoffs are no exception.
And with 1,310,699 YouTube views in its first week, this TV commercial/music video hybrid proves that Beats’ tactic is a sensible one.
It’s something of a shame (or a bonus – depending on your perspective) that the campaign rolled out when Green caused a little on court controversy in the 2016 Playoffs.
This week Green was fined $25,000 (although not, as many experts had predicted, suspended) by the NBA on Monday for kicking Oklahoma City centre Steven Adams in the groin.
Beats will also be worried that Green’s hot favourite Golden State Warriors team – despite being defending champions, boasting the league’s MVP in Steph Curry and breaking the regular season wins record – are currently trailing in the Western Conference Finals to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
This 2016 Playoffs campaign follows on from the same campaign combination – Green and Beats – rolling out a previous Playoffs ad at around the same time in 2015.
Developed by the R/GA associated Hustle agency, like the 2016 work, last year’s spot was for its fashion headphones brand.
That ad, called ‘Hear What You Want’ also racked up almost two million YouTube views and features Green field an avalanche of hostile questions from the media.
Eventually, Green has heard enough of the press’ critical probing and puts on his Beats and walks away as the Eminem track ‘Phenomenal’.
Beats already has long heritage of using star athlete ambassadors to front spots ambushing major sports events: from Lebron James’ ‘Rise’ (see case study) and ‘You Deserve The Best’ ads (see case study), to its Rugby World Cup ‘The Game Starts here’ campaign (see case study),
its Serena Williams ‘Rise’ spot around the 2015 US Open tennis (see case study) and its Nick Kyrgios Play Your Owen Rules’ 2015 Wimbledon ambush (see case study).
Links:
Beats by Dre Web:
Beats by Dre YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/Officialb…
Beats by Dre Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/beatsbydre/
Beats by Dre Twitter:
http://twitter.com/beatsbydre/
Beats by Dre Instagram:
http://www.instagram.com/beatsbydre/
Beats by Dre Google+:
https://plus.google.com/+beatsbydre
Beats by Dre Pinterest:
http://pinterest.com/beatsbydre/
Beats by Dre Music:
http://beats.is/TellMeWhenToGo
