ESPN | Because Its Gameday
The Challenge: ESPN’s College GameDay is more than a studio show, it’s an entertainment brand that represents the best qualities in sports. But ESPN was struggling to maintain CGD’s relevance by reaching a broadcast audience alone. Fan behavior had changed, and ESPN needed to rethink how marketing engaged with them.
The Solution: Meet fans where they were and match their fandom, which is always on, 24-7, with a true social-first content experience where fans could consume CGD from anywhere at anytime, not just 3 hours Saturday morning on cable tv.
We focussed the feeds on weekly content designed to give fans a little College GameDay everyday with location announcements, athlete access, campus highlights, on-air-talent exclusives, GameDay behind the scenes and so much more stuff.
We drove traffic to the social only pre-show “Countdown to GameDay” with paid ads.
And we activated on campus to give fans an immersive GameDay
experience and encourage participation in the live broadcast.
Agency EP + Co
CCO John Cornette
CDs Ellen Page, Bee Reynolds
Creatives Rory Jenson, Will Isom, Tim Kang
Brand Strategy Cory Brinson
Account Lead Scott Voege
Producers Jarrell Williams, Jillian Cornette, Jeff Henry
Photography Orlando Assan, Heather Grace