As a sports-starved television audience tuned in to the start of ESPN’s opening episode of its much-hyped ‘The Last Dance’ docuseries, viewers found themselves initially confused as show sponsor State Farm led with a spot of fakery in the form of a stunt spot.
Broadcast immediately ahead of the 19 April Sunday evening broadcast of the 10-part Michael Jordan documentary series, the insurer’s ad took viewers on a quick, time-jumping head fake of an ad.
The spot actually debuted via an NBA tweet a day before the documentary began airing:
@Kenny_Mayne had a hunch. #TheLastDance premieres Sunday, April 19 at 9:00 PM ET on ESPN. @StateFarm pic.twitter.com/9w7Kwzd20c
— NBA (@NBA) April 18, 2020
The narrative arc began with what initially appeared to be ESPN SportsCenter archive footage from 1998 when the Chicago Bulls won their third consecutive championship.
Just the kind of footage viewers were expecting as they settled down to watch the first two episodes of a documentary about the Bulls’ 1997-98 season.
But as the spot unfolded it was clear that all was not what it had initially seemed as longtime ESPN broadcaster Kenny Mayne was not actually predicting the future, but fronting a form of deep fake commercial which saw new audio laid over archive footage.
SFTLDDAT0409H from ESPN CreativeWorks on Vimeo.
The spot seeks to drive awareness of the show, to encourage viewers to tune-in for the documentary and to drive awareness of the brand’s sponsorship of the series.
It ran across ESPN linear platforms and a 6-second version ran on Snapchat.
While late last year saw State Farm announce it was moving lead creative duties to agency The Marketing Arm (with incumbent and sister Omnicom agency DDB Chicago retaining some of the account), this commercial was produced by ESPN CreativeWorks – the network’s branded content studio.
A further strand of State Farm’s activation around the show sees it present ‘The Vault’ – showcasing content from the ESPN archives, while the insurer also signed on as the presenting sponsor of ‘Jalen & Jacoby: The After Show’ – a live digital exclusive show with ESPN’s Jalen Rose and David Jacoby which sill stream live across various social media channels including Facebook and the ESPN App immediately after The Last Dance and features show reactions and an interview with the director Jason Hehir.
Three insurance show sponsor then signed off its activation with a second deep fake style Sports Centre spot, called ‘The Final Act’, leveraging the final episode of The Last Dance.
Outcome:
The sports and marketing press reaction to State Farm’s sponsorship was universally positive – both from a creative and a strategic perspective – and the spot generated impressive social statistics (especially for an insurer) with more than 500,000 social media viewers of the creative across the brand’s own channels.
Comment:
The spot rapidly generated plenty of social media buzz – most of which gave the insurer kudos for its clever misdirection.
And the best commercial of 2020 goes to… State Farm featuring Kenny Mayne! #TheLastDance pic.twitter.com/qfbw6nvWM0
— Dwight A. Looper (@DwightALooper) April 20, 2020
The @StateFarm deep fake @SportsCenter ad was pretty great…and downright scary. #TheLastDance
— J.W. Cannon (@cannonjw) April 20, 2020
ESPN’s ‘The Last Dance’ was sponsored by NBA partner and major basketball marketer State Farm, as well as by Facebook and the Hershey’s brand Reese’s.
“If you wanted to increase the commercial format, then you had to edit the content, and it’s such a premier piece of content we weren’t going to do that,” said Disney Advertising Sales Senior VP for Sports Sean Hanrahan. “One of the values of the sponsors was having limited sponsors and limited commercial interruption.”
The partnership rights included regular commercials around the broadcast, plus in-show integrations (eg Facebook showcased trivia on the Bulls, while Reese’s sponsored a feature called ‘Remember When’ that showcases stories about the team).
Also, as part of Facebook’s sponsorship ESPN is delivering exclusive Facebook and Instagram programming to interact with fans which include pre- and post-show Facebook Live broadcasts on the ESPN Page and an exclusive Instagram Live pre-show via the SportsCenter account.
Another brand happy with the show is Nike. Not an official sponsor, but its products appear in the footage frequently and as a brand so closely association with Jordan, Nike leveraged the show and surprised sneakerheads by rolling out an early limited release of the Jordan 5 Fire Red kicks on its SNKRS app.
Retailing for $200 and originally scheduled for release on 2 May, they sold out almost instantly.
In a sports-starved world where all major US leagues are shut down and media owners reduced to airing old games and simulated content, The Last Dance proved an immediate ratings hit with the first two episodes averaging 6.1 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN2.
It also reached those key younger demographics: with 3.5 million of the total 6.1 million average audience in the much sought after 18-to-49-year-old age group. Indeed, since almost all US live sport ceased in mid-March, the show ranks as the highest viewed programme among 18-34s and 18-49s in the US.
Plus, within the first 24 hours after the shows aired there were more than 1.6 million tweets about The Last Dance (according to Twitter) and the show was the #1 trending topic on Twitter throughout Sunday 19 April.
Even the trailer generated 1.5m views on the sports broadcaster’s YouTube channel.
To add a little context in comparison to live sports viewing numbers, it was ESPN’s most-watched show since the NCAA College Football National Championship back in January and only two games of the currently suspended 2019-20 NBA season averaged more viewers than The Last Dance premiere (the Clippers v Lakers at 8.76m and the Rockets v Warriors at 6.5m on Christmas Day).
An interesting aside, Jordan, who remains the highest earning sports star of all time largely thanks to his partnership with Nike, is donating his entire share of the proceeds from the Last Dance – which should reach at least $3m to $4m – to charitable causes.
‘The Last Dance’ airson ESPN in the USA over five weeks from April 19 through May 17.
Links:
State Farm
https://www.youtube.com/user/statefarm
https://www.facebook.com/statefarm
https://www.instagram.com/statefarm/
ESPN
https://www.youtube.com/user/ESPN
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