Early March sees NCAA automotive partner Infiniti align with broadcaster CBS Sports to invite fans to support the #Unbustable spirit of the Hardwood Heroes with a round-by-round March Madness bracket initiative that benefits its ‘Coaches vs Cancer’ cause campaign.
The initiative, which becomes active on 12 March, urges consumers to ‘make your bracket matter’ by joining the CBS ‘Round By Round’ bracket which benefits Coaches vs Cancer fund raising programme for the American Cancer Society.
Based around a digital bracket hub (http://mayhem.cbssports.com/splash/mayhem/spln/bpcr), the platform enables fans to support ‘Coaches vs Cancer’ by entering each of the six CBS Sports Round by Round Brackets and for every correct pick Infiniti will make a donation and the winning fan will be entered to win a trip to the 2018 Final Four.
Players can submit a new bracket every round so don’t have to worry about bracket busting college basketball upsets.
The activation is promoted by a set of #Unbustable films led by a spearhead 60-second spot launched on 1 March acrosss both Infinity and CBS channels.
and supported by a set of athlete-specific 30-second online videos such as ‘Oscar is #Unbustable’,
‘Lena is #Unbustable’,
and ‘J. Dee is #Unbustable’.
The #unbustable videos are amplified across the car company and boradcaster’s digital and social channels
They don’t have to win on the court to prove they’re champions against cancer. They’re the Hardwood Heroes, and they are #Unbustable. pic.twitter.com/lam4YWKvvK
— INFINITI USA (@INFINITIUSA) March 2, 2017
and are backed by further content pieces,
Champions against cancer. Their spirit is #Unbustable. Support Hardwood Heroes & make your bracket matter March 12. https://t.co/TQcMy4oTCh
— INFINITI USA (@INFINITIUSA) March 2, 2017
as Infiniti’s 2017 Hardwood Heroes initiative drives viewers to link their own personal March Madness brackets at http://cbssports.com/infiniti and help raise funds to fight cancer.
The Hardwood Heroes strand links to the car brand’s ongoing ‘Coaches Charity Challenge’.
The latest phase of its NCAA CSR activation, which is now in its sixth year, helps 48 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball coaches raise money for their charity of choice.
Working alongside ESPN with round by round updates on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/infiniti) and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/infinitiusa), it incentivised viewers to vote at http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/infiniti/2017/index?next=home for the #Coaches4Charity winners.
After weeks of face-offs and fan voting,
the winner was John Beilein – who received $100,000 toward The ChadTough Foundation.
Through the entire season-long challenge, a total of $349,000 was donated to the charities of all participating coaches.
Activative Comment:
2016 might have been the first year that the Rio Paralympics may have seen superior sponsorship and rights holder activation than its big brother Olympics, but Infiniti has been running impressive and admirable NCAA campaigns like this for six years now.
Infiniti’s NCAA partnership, its tie-up with the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) and ESPN is a slam-dunk is a success both on and off the court in terms of inspiring basketball fans to give back to communities and causes and to build brand values too.
As well as the charity fund-raising contest and a set of innovative multimedia campaigns through the NCAA regular season and March Madness, Infiniti also back special initiatives like #Unbustable and the Infiniti Coaches’ Charity Challenge.
Infiniti is a corporate partner of the not for profit educational NCAA organisation – who’s two-tier portfolio also includes the following brands:
Corporate Champions:
AT&T
Capital One
Coca-Cola
Corporate Partners:
Allstate
Amazon
Bing
Buffalo Wild Wings
Buick
Enterprise
Infiniti
Lowe’s
LG
Nabisco
Northwestern Mutual
Pizza Hut
Reese’s
Unilever
UPS
Links:
Infiniti
https://www.youtube.com/user/Infiniti
http://www.facebook.com/infiniti
http://www.twitter.com/infinitiusa
https://www.instagram.com/infiniti/
CBS
http://mayhem.cbssports.com/splash/mayhem/spln/bpcr
NCAA
