ESPN Promotes College Football Playoff Coverage With ‘Who’s In’ Experiential Fan Initiative

Official broadcaster ESPN’s ongoing ‘Everything Matters’ season-long College Football Playoff campaign added an additional strand as the climax of the season approached with an experiential ‘Who’s In’ initiative offering a once-in-a-lifetime experience for four adventurous fans.

The four lucky fans were invited to live on top of a giant billboard erected in downtown San Jose – in the neighbourhood of the National Championship game at Levi’s Stadium.

The experience was promoted, amplified and spread across the sports media giant’s digital and social platforms,

College Football Playoff #ESPNBillboard from Alexa Dettelbach on Vimeo.

and was livestreamed on ESPN3 and integrated into regular ESPN programming for the 12 days of the project.

The experiential initiative itself ran up until the 7 January National Championship Game.

The four fans – Llyas Ross Sr, Nancy Volland, Jeanette Kim and Ruben Hunter – each repsented the supporters of the four semi-final teams: the Alabama Crimson Tide, Clemson Tigers, Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Oklahoma Sooners.

They four new billboard dwelling housemates moved in to the specially erected OOH home on 27 December ahead of the two semi-final games on 29 December: The Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic featuring Notre Dame and Clemson; and the Capital One Orange Bowl featuring Oklahoma and Alabama.

To enter the competition for a spot in the billboard flat, around 700 fans from teams around the country sent in their own personal video testimonials explaining why they should represent their team.

The four who were finally chosen had their passionate fandom put on full display on the billboard: which was built 45 feet up in the air on a 40-foot wide by eight-foot deep poster site.

The campaign was created and executed by agencies Red, IMG Live and Catalyst Public Relations.

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