ESPN Launches ‘Go With Your Gut’ Campaign To Leverage NCAA March Madness

As millions of Americans – from prediction novices to hard core hoops fans – begin to fill in their brackets and cross their fingers ahead of NCAA March Madness, ESPN encourages them to trust their instincts with a college basketball campaign called ‘Go With Your Gut’.

 

Each year, hoops fans and college graduates turn to the Disney owned multimedia sports company to curate their brackets and filling them out correctly often seems daunting – especially to casual fans and first timers. So for March Madness 2023 ESPN recommends that they simply trust their gut feelings.

 

The integrated campaign for the broadcaster’s annual ‘Tournament Challenge’ bracket game was developed in partnership with long-time agency partner Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (BSSP) and highlights how anything can happen during the annual Division One university basketball tournament

 

The work aims to engage both new ‘bracketeers’ and bring back previous players and the campaign launched with a trio of spots – ‘Birding’, ‘Furniture’ and ‘Husky’ – dropping on 27 February ahead of the official men’s and women’s brackets opening on 12 March.

 

Building on ESPN’s equal focus on the men’s and women’s games in its 2022 Tournament Challenge, this year’s campaign empowers everyone to embrace the madness, ignore the advanced analytics and statistics and instead simply trust their intuition, or the signs the universe is sending them.

 

ESPN’s work plays into the chaos, complexities and uncertainties surrounding March Madness brackets and highlight how pretty much anything can happen during the tournament – from top seeds losing early to underdogs going all the way to the Final Four – and how there is no surefire way of correctly predicting the outcome so you might be best just to go with your gut instincts.

 

 

 

 

‘Go With Your Gut’ spanned broadcast, streaming, digital, audio and social and, supporting the films, the agency and media client also produced an online digital toolkit running across all touchpoints. 

 

“ESPN’s Tournament Challenge continues to be the #1 March Madness Bracket Challenge, but so many fans who don’t know much about college basketball are scared to get involved. With this new effort, we wanted to embrace the fact that statistically, no one – not even the most well informed super fan – is capable of filling out the perfect bracket,” explained BSSP Creative Director Robyn Tenenbaum. “The uncertainty and the madness and the chaos are really what make Tournament Challenge so engaging and so easy to love. We wanted the creative to highlight that feeling.”

 

ESPN Brand Marketing VP Seth Adler added: “ESPN Tournament Challenge continues to be the No. 1 bracket game and consistently reaches a younger, more casual audience between the men’s and women’s games. We’re encouraging fans to go with their gut and embrace the roller coaster of emotions that March college basketball brings us.”

 

The campaign was created by a team at agency BSSP which included Executive Creative Director Sinan Dagli, Creative Director Robyn Tenenbaum, Art Director Lauren Byers, Copywriter Justin Cannon, Producer Cade Wallace, Head Of Strategy Jake Bayham, Strategy Director Cierra Moore, Account Director Kyle Rodriguez, Account Manager Shannon Stucke and Account Manager Krista Horn.

 

Production was handled by Stept Studios with Director Ben McManus, Director John Marsico, Executive Producer Blake Greenbaum, Producer Rebecca Case and Production Manager Jasmine Holdsworth.

 

Editorial was run through MackCut where the tem included Editor Brendan Hogan and Edit Assistant Ellen Schoenfeld.

 

 

Comment

 

This campaign follows on from the last couple of years when there has been a major focus on gender equality in March Madness bracket challenges such as Degree’s 2022 ‘Bracket Gap Challenge’ and Buick’s ‘See Her Greatness’.