As the NBA Playoffs get underway, Kobe Bryant is fronting a new hoops-themed campaign for sports drink BodyArmor.
Basketball legend Bryant, who retired from the sport last year, is not just one of the drink’s biggest ambassadors, but also a major investor in the business, the campaign’s creative director and its narrator
The campaign, which continues the six-year-old sports drink’s battle with official partner and category behemoth Gatorade, is BodyArmor’s largest marketing push ever.
It is themed around the role ‘obsession’ plays for athletes and includes sports star endorser appearances by Dustin Johnson, James Harden, Mike Trout, Anthony Rizzo, Andrew Luck, Richard Sherman, Dez Bryant, Kristaps Porzingis and Skylar Diggins.
It is led by its first TV ad which is shot in black-in-white (with the exception of bottles of BodyArmor which the athletes drink at the end of gruelling workouts).
The BodyArmor ad is airing through the NBA Playoffs on official broadcasters TNT, ESPN and ABC.
The YouTube version of the ad has notched up 54,104 views in its first week.
It is also running across the brand’s digital and social channels.
ICYMI: “Kobe Bryant, BODYARMOR Launch Sports Drink's First National TV Campaign” https://t.co/fCumtDRLSk #ObsessionIsNatural @FoxBusiness
— BODYARMOR (@DrinkBODYARMOR) April 21, 2017
With additional social content pieces focusing on Bryant,
We spoke to @KobeBryant about his new obsession after basketball: The art of storytelling. #obsessionisnatural https://t.co/5XLoEuPrUC pic.twitter.com/GHbuQblfPT
— Complex Sports (@ComplexSports) April 25, 2017
and the ad’s other hoops stars like Harden,
Hunt… or be Hunted.#ObsessionIsNatural
WATCH NOW: https://t.co/hmHv6OFQXN pic.twitter.com/X9xteO41tB— BODYARMOR (@DrinkBODYARMOR) April 20, 2017
and including some low latency, game relevant pieces.
Tune into @espn tonight to see who takes the W. @KlayThompson #ObsessionIsNatural pic.twitter.com/YIrLQK8LSg
— BODYARMOR (@DrinkBODYARMOR) April 23, 2017
That #Game5 Obsession. #ObsessionIsNatural pic.twitter.com/67q45JCZGc
— BODYARMOR (@DrinkBODYARMOR) April 25, 2017
Bryant maintains that BodyArmor is trying to create a ‘movement’.
‘It’s one thing to inspire athletes to want to be great and you see a lot of brands doing that,’ he explains.
‘What we are trying to do instead is challenge. And there’s a big difference between inspiring and challenging. We live in a day and age now where kids are surrounded by instant gratification. In sports you can’t do that.’
Activative Comment:
This isn’t just a sports star backer lending his name to a project for PR value in return for a small stake in the business.
Bryant provides in-depth creative input into the campaign and is ‘intimately involved’ in BodyArmor’s wider marketing strategy.
The former LA Lakers super star honed some of his marketing skills by injecting creative input into several Nike ads through his career.
‘I’ve been into story telling for a very, very, very long time,’ Bryant adds.
‘t started when I first came into the league and had a fascination with stories and campaigns and how to write and create some of those things myself.’
Bryant attests that his sports apparel sponsor Nike often gave him some freedom to write his own ads.
Indeed, on the BodyArmor spot he worked alongside Brian Ford, a former Wieden & Kennedy copywriter with whom he has previously partnered on Nike work (including Nike’s ‘Love Me or Hate Me’).
He is even reported to have had a key role in crafting BodyArmor’s tagline ‘Obsession is Natural’ – a message that plays on the product’s natural flavors, coloring and sweeteners.
Indeed, Bryant claims to have first written the line on a BodyArmor-branded towel that he was using during his final NBA game: he autographed the towel for BodyArmour co-founder Mike Repole and wrote the phrase on the towel as he felt it summarised both his obsession with basketball and Repole’s obsession with entrepreneurship (who also was a co-founder of Vitaminwater – which Coca-Cola acquired in 2007).
‘I stepped back and I looked at it and I was like, huh, Mike, I just came up with our line. I just came up with our company ethos,’ recalls Bryant.
While giant rival Gatorade dominates the category with a 75% share – well ahead of Coca-Cola’s Powerade at roughly 20% and Body Armor’s 2% (according to IRI).
But Body Armor sales grew by more than 140% to $122.9m in the year ending 19 March 19 (again, according to IRI).
Links:
BodyArmor
http://www.drinkbodyarmor.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/DrinkBODYARMOR
