As the new college football season gets under way, the NCAA’s official drink Dr Pepper has brought back its mock TV series ‘Fansville’ campaign for a second season.
The initiative, created in harness with creative agency Deutsch, is an episodic marketing campaign depicting a community where everyone is a die-hard football fan.
The new season Fansville spots feature former NFL players Brian Bosworth (as a sheriff) and Eddie George (as a doctor): both of whom appeared in the first season.
The second season’s set of nine spots sees the titular town celebrate its 150th anniversary and they will roll out during the college football broadcasts on ESPN, CBS and Fox.
The campaign opened with a teaser released the week ahead of kick off on 13 August,
followed by additional trailers released on 19 August.
The season finale will air during the National Championship in January 2020.
As well as the commercials, the campaign also includes messaging on websites, social media, out-of-home advertising and radio.
Comment:
The initiative sees Dr Pepper renew a fake TV show for a second season: which itself shows the higher premium that some brands are putting toward content marketing with a larger narrative arc and characters that viewers can follow over a period of time.
The episodic nature and continuity of the campaign sets out to keep football fans engaged over the course of the season – as opposed to just distracting them for a few moments through traditional TV spots.
‘Fansville’ parodies high school sports dramas such as ‘Friday Night Lights’ and tracks the story of football-obsessed fans in a fictional town with an ongoing rivalry between the State and the Tech teams.
The initiative aims to help Dr Pepper engage its millennial college football fan audience: after all, the soda maker has higher brand share among college football fans in the key 18-34 age group than Pepsi or Coke.
This season’s work follows up previous Fansville iterations such as January 2019’s ‘Fansville Unusual Suspects’ Leverages College National Football Champs’ (see case study) and August 2018’s launch campaign (see case study).
Links:
Dr Pepper
https://www.youtube.com/user/drpeppervideos
https://www.facebook.com/DrPepper
https://www.instagram.com/drpepper/
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.