As we start August there are Olympic sized best practices in and out of Paris that we wanted to highlight four.
Bucks Stop Obesity Here. The Milwaukee Bucks, always looking for a way to cut through the clutter with unique partnership activations, even in the offseason, found one with a long runway leading to success that will have some great visuals and will address the epidemic of obesity with a special challenge.
Last week they formally launched a free weight-loss program designed to combat obesity and prevent related conditions like diabetes and heart disease among people in underserved communities. The initiative, funded by the Milwaukee Bucks Foundation, aims to enroll as many as 1,000 patients by the end of this year, said Dr. Elizabeth Sharp, a New York-based physician who spearheaded the initiative and is the wife of Bucks co-owner Wes Edens.
The program touches on so many issues that fans can literally touch and feel, and can continue to build as the season progresses. It has that always nice idea of a counter…the number of pounds collectively lost…that becomes a great visual, and gives fans the ability to story tell tied to a positive health initiative. Rolling it out in a quiet period for the team also keeps the Bucks in the news when most teams are kicking back. Lots of points scored on this one.
If Katie Ledecky can drive tune in why can’t everyone? There it was, a social post by the newly crowned most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, telling people WHEN they can watch her preliminary races. It was visually compelling, easy to follow and needed no explanation. Now maybe, given the audience size the Olympics have drawn, Ledecky didn’t need to do this, but that’s not the point. The point is with the multiple streaming, multiple broadcast deals leagues and properties now have, finding what’s where is a massive challenge not yet easily solved. What Katie Ledecky did is the gold standard…no pun intended, well maybe…for what athletes, coaches, anyone with a social following should do when their team or league is playing. Someone helped design it and if it’s good for Katie it should be required for everyone as part of their own work to make sure eyes are fixed on live events.
RIP Pop Tarts. College media days are big deals, big business, big talk. It’s always nice to see little creative ways to cut through the banter. Kudos to the ACC, who found a fun way to drive social traffic and remind us that we take things too seriously. They held a “memorial service” for the Pop Tart who gave his all going into the toaster at last year’s widely covered stunt at The Pop Tart Bowl. Bringing the breakfast treat back into the conversation brought some great viral coverage and probably got the ACC a few extra notes and reminders that their coaches and players were starting to gear up for the season. Very tastefully done…yes, another pun.
Then there is Snoop. We have written several times about how Snoop Dogg has reinvented himself by knowing the audience, the goals of those he is working with, and staying relevant to a new audience. Here we are at the Olympics and he has done it again…finding ways from his own unique on brand pin, to his daily fashion statements, to carrying the torch to just having fun in broadcast. The Snoop experiment has worked amazingly well, we can’t wait to see where he ends up next. Paris and the Dog are a perfect fit for NBC.
