Ahead of the new college football season, playoffs partner Dr Pepper launched a new campaign, ‘Fansville’, based around a fictitious town filled with college football fanatics.
Launched 10 days ahead of the 2018/19 college football season, which kicks off on the last weekend of August, the soft drinks’ brand’s ‘Fansville’ parodies television show dramas.
The creative revolves around a community of football obsessed fans and pits supporters of generic ‘State’ potted against rival fans from nemesis ‘Tech’.
It features a cast of actor that also includes former NFL stars Brian Bosworth and Eddie George (who play a sheriff and a doctor respectively), while former Louisiana State University Coach Les Miles plays a store clerk.
This activation approach aims to tap into the kind of extreme fandom that typically exists in football-obsessed communities across the USA: especially in the southern states where college and high school football plays such a key role.
Dr Pepper, which has been an official sponsor of the College Football Playoff since 2014, developed the campaign with agency Deutsch and the video pieces were directed by Jonathan Krisel (whose television credits include ‘Baskets’ and ‘Portlandia’).
The activation is spearheaded by a 60-second official pre-season trailer,
supported by 30-second
and 15-second cut downs.
Through the season the drinks brand will roll out six, 30-second spots in an epsidoc format which will climax with the ‘season finale commercial’ during the CFP National Championship on 7 January.
“We conceived what would a world look like that just for college football fans,” said Dr Pepper brand marketing VP Derek Dabrowski.
“We didn’t want this to be subtle in the least bit.”
The research for the new activation approach saw Deutsch staff attend January’s national championship game – Alabama v Clemson – as part of the agency’s research into fandom.
“A football season is lot like a drama that plays out,” said Deutsche ECD and VP Brett Craig.
“It has highs and lows and a season-long story arc to it. It has episodes with audiences tuning in each week for each game and it culminates in a season finale with a championship game— kind of like a TV drama.”
In addition to the ‘Fansville’ video-led work, a further strand of the drinks brand’s college football activation is a $100,000 tuition contest.
This ‘Dr Pepper Tuition Giveaway’ is a season-long program that provides tuition-based awards to deserving students across the country.
Hubbed around the brand’s site at https://www.drpepper.com/en/funstuff/post/tuition, Dr Pepper is offering $100,000 in tuition scholarships to a few motivated students aged between the ages of 18-24.
Comment:
This approach reflects the growing trend for sponsor brands to activate sports rights through dramatic, episodic spots evolving a central storyline throughout the season with a linked narrative storyline, rather than run occasional, unrelated commercials.
This new pigskin-obsessed parody replaces long-time campaign character Larry Culpepper.
The first Culpepper campaign debuted at the very start of the creation of the College Football Playoff and the character’s core idea was that he suffered from the delusion that he personally invented the playoff.
Over the years, Culpepper campaigns had both supporters and critics.
“With anything you will find the lovers and the haters so I don’t think we had any indication it was swaying in one direction or another,” explained Dabrowski.
From a business angle he claimed that the previous campaign performed phenomenally, but the brand was now committed to a new narrative spearheading its commitment to football.
College football has been an important element of Dr Pepper’s marketing playbook for some time now and the brand has been a sponsor of the College Football Playoff since 2014.
And earlier this year extended its College Football Playoff sponsorship and its linked partnership with the event’s broadcaster ESPN through to 2026.
The brand is the presenting sponsorship of the College Football Playoff National Championship Trophy and is as an SEC official sponsor and partner of ESPN and the SEC Network.
“Dr Pepper is synonymous with college football. Since signing on as the first sponsor of the College Football Playoff four years ago, we’ve strengthened that connection exponentially, tapping into the extraordinary passions of fans of both football and Dr Pepper,” said Jim Trebilcock, chief commercial officer for Dr Pepper Snapple Group, when the extension was announced.
“We are very proud to be extending our partnership with ESPN and the College Football Playoff for another six seasons, and we’re looking forward to giving our fans more of what they crave in the coming years.”
Last year, Dr Pepper was the USA’s fourth biggest soft drinks brand (after Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Diet Coke).
Links:
Dr Pepper
https://www.facebook.com/DrPepper
https://www.instagram.com/drpepper/
https://www.youtube.com/user/drpeppervideos
Deutsch
NCAA College Football
https://international.ncaa.com/
College Football Playoff
https://collegefootballplayoff.com/
