Late July saw EA Sports roll out a new, multi-platform campaign, running under the title ‘Bring It On’, promoting the August release of its latest Madden NFL 20 game.
The Madden NFL franchise is the USA’s best-selling sports game: an EA Sports staple with a history of realistic play and fandom that spans decades.
Working with creative agency Johannes Leonardo, the integrated campaign included a series of digital, social and TV broadcast pieces that were seeded in-market through late July ahead of the game release on 2 August.
The new Electronic Arts campaign will continue to roll-out with further supporting content pieces through the year.
For the launch of Madden NFL 20, EA Sports briefed the agency to create a campaign that would generate anticipation and hype the latest version of the title and promote fresh features such as new player modes and storylines.
The campaign was fronted by Kansas City Chief quarterback Patrick Mahomes – the Madden NFL 20’s cover player and the NFL MVP for the 2018 season who is known by coaches, players and fans for his stirring pep talks and so the creative sought to put the huddle in the players’ hands in the form of a 60-second hero spot showing the ultimate, star-studded, pre-game huddle.
Mahomes enters and fires up the group for the inspirational huddle. He is then joined by an all-star team of both high profile athletes and celebrities: including NFL stars JuJu Smith-Schuster (Pittsburgh Steelers), Alvin Kamara (New Orlean Saints), and rappers Lil Yachty and then DK Khaled appears on a Sea-Doo. The narrative arc then sees Kamara drag around two defenders who’ve been trying to tackle him for months.
The spot closes with the tagline: “Stardom is in your hands”.
“Football has been and always will be at the cross-section of sport and modern American culture, and that’s where the Madden gamer lives,” said Johannes Leonardo creative director Omid Amidi.
“They love to win, and they love everything that comes with it—the music, the shoes, the celebrations and more. They love the juice. And that’s what this ad serves up. It’s about winning, but it’s doing it in a way that speaks to them. With flair, with charisma, and in a way that feels culturally relevant.”
This year’s campaign emerged after agency staff came across one of Mahomes’ powerful, inspirational pregame speaches which made the marketers realize ‘that nothing announces your arrival as a superstar better than being able to take over the iconic football huddle’.
“During a frenetic, fun-filled shoot, the background talent would take turns at doing JuJu, Kamara, Yachty or Khaled’s lines—which stoked the competitive fire in our stars and got us some great performances,” added Amidi.
“There was a really camaraderie built on set. After wrapping his day, JuJu proceeded to order a plethora of burgers and held a family meal for cast and staff in one of the dressing rooms as a thank you.”
In parallel EA Sports also launched Madden 20’s official gameplay trailer during the same week.
In parallel with the game launch campaign, EA and the NFL also unveiled the launch of the ‘EA SPORTS Madden NFL 20 Championship Series (MCS)’.
The 2019/20 season aims to further enhance the link to the sport and the four Madden NFL Major tournaments occur during key NFL moments – the NFL Kickoff, the NFL playoffs push, the Super Bowl and the NFL Draft.
While official NFL partners Pizza Hut and Snickers also act as official MCS sponsors, heightening the connection to the League.
The Madden NFL 20 Classic starts ahead oof the regular season start and runs from 30 August to 1 September at Esports Stadium Arlington (North America’s largest esports-dedicated facility) and will air on the Madden NFL Twitch and YouTube channels.
Comment:
We like this splashy, minute-long launch commercial and by included a variety of talent from multiple entertainment silos, the ad aims to have a broad appeal.
There are some similarities with the promotion approach to Madden 19 last year which included musicians such as Nikki Minaj, Chris Redd, Lil Dicky, Quavo and others teamed up with gamer legend named Will as he tried to ‘Make the Greatest Play, and Reaps the Reward.’
These two campaigns certainly adopt a slightly different tone and tactic from the November 2018 launch of EA Madden Legends (see case study).
This is a striking game-launch lead commercial and one that continues the wider trend for blending sport and music to creative a more mass market entertainment industry positioning.
One that aims to reach beyond existing core fans into the wider world of gaming and entertainment.
This approach has spread globally in the sports space through the last five to 10 years.
One recent US sports stand out example of this tactics was the March 2019 Prince Royce fronted ‘Our Soccer’ campaign for the MLS season launch (see case study).
Links:
Madden NFL
https://www.easports.com/madden-nfl
https://www.instagram.com/eamaddennfl/
https://twitter.com/EAMaddenNFL
https://www.facebook.com/EASportsMaddenNFL
EA
https://www.facebook.com/EASPORTS
https://www.youtube.com/user/EASPORTS
Johannes Leonardo
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