Hennessy leveraged the NBA Playoffs in April through a craft and culturally led campaign called ‘Game Never Stops’ which celebrates the influence that basketball in general and the NBA in particular have on global culture.
Developed in harness with creative agency Droga5 New York, directed by award-winning director and music producer Maceo Frost and celebrating the Moet Hennessy brand’s worldwide spirits sponsorship, the creative blends Frost’s immersive and kinetic visual style with four pioneering talents from the fields of music, photography and fashion – each explores the impact that basketball has had on their work and on pop culture.
The stars of the campaign are British musician AJ Tracey, Chinese rapper Masiwei, French fashion designer Stephane Ashpool and Paris-based photographer and filmmaker Kevin Couliau . Each has been influenced by hoops culture and each has been acclaimed for pushing boundaries in their own spaces.
Built around a hero short film amplified across the brand’s digital and social channels, the spot explores the reach of basketball culture across Africa, Asia, North America and Europe.
The campaign also involves a number of supporting activations around the world led by artistic commissions highlighting the connection between Hennessy and the NBA and further exploring the sports influence on culture. The lead spot seeks to drive consumers to learn more about these activations around the world at https://hennessy.ink/HennessyGameNeve…
‘Hennessy x NBA – Game Never Stops’ dropped online on 14 April and has since generated 2.8m YouTube views and more than 1m Instagram views on Hennessey’s own channels.
The brand’s criteria for choosing which creative and cultural talent to collaborate with (all of whom had pre-existing relationships with Hennessy) focused on finding visionaries, tastemakers and creative leaders who are also basketball enthusiasts: each one’s love of the game has influenced their work.
“First and foremost we believe that the campaign message, ‘Game Never Stops’, sets it apart. ‘Game Never Stops’ is a term that represents the cultural impact that the game of basketball has had beyond the sport itself, celebrating and amplifying the influence that the leagues, the sport, and Hennessy have had on and off the court in so many unique cultural facets of society,” explained the PR statement accompanying the campaign launch. “‘Game’ is more than basketball, it’s putting your own creative stamp on the world on and off the court. To us, this message is something not often seen and we think that the call to action for consumers to join in the conversation sets the campaign apart”
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Hennessey’s NBA partnership, now in its second year, is built on shared values and the cognac brand’s desire to expand its reach beyond its traditional older, establishment, adult consumer.
This campaign adds a new creative spin on the booze brand’s role as the NBA’s first ever global spirit partner and follows on from its ‘Make Moves That Start Movements’ campaign which launched in June 2021 and expanded in November 2021.
“We knew for a while that basketball was an important space for Hennessy because the NBA strives to push the limits of its potential in the same ways that we do,” explained the Hennessy marketing team statement. “We both take pride in our legacy while also constantly looking toward the future and exploring ways that we can continue to expand and grow our communities. We share the NBA’s core values of integrity, teamwork, respect and innovation and we knew that a collaborative journey together would allow us to drive culture forward together. As we enter the second year of our partnership we have already seen the ways that our like-minded attitudes have resulted in an expanded global community of rule breakers and trendsetters from different fields and walks of life and we are excited to continue to watch this community grow.”
The NBA tie-up also aimed to simultaneously underpin and also to build on the cognac brand becoming popular amongst the hip hop and rap community by placing the drink at the global intersection of music, fashion, art and sport through the league.
“At Hennessy we are constantly striving to reach a global community that puts themselves out there and wants to put their own stamp on the culture that they love,” continued the brand statement. “The NBA’s cultural impact has spread far beyond the sport of basketball and into the worlds of fashion, music and art which consist of exactly the consumers that we at Hennessy are trying to reach. Having a presence within the basketball community is extremely important for the direction that we are taking the brand as it allows us to reach new audiences who may not necessarily be basketball fans but are immersed – maybe even unknowingly – in fields that the game has impacted.”
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