March Madness - College Road Trip (NCAA)
The 6th Annual Awards
- Best Athlete Storytelling
ABOUT THIS ENTRY
The NCAA College Road Trip shares human interest stories of division I women's basketball players and coaches through interactive interviews. The goal is to showcase player personalities and coaching philosophies in hopes of growing the support and our community.
How does this represent “Excellence in Engagement”?
The Women’s Basketball College Road Trip continues to be the root of our seasonal social media strategy success. It engages the community and players before the season’s hustle and allows fans to engage with players as people before they’re players in the game. After concluding The Women’s Basketball College Road Trip, we’ve seen dramatic increases YoY in our social metrics.
We believe this shows leagues that brand buy-in on social media is achievable when meaningful investment in content meets the audience and players where they are. After concluding The Women’s Basketball College Road Trip this year, teams are lobbying for our visit in 2025. We look forward to continuing this program for future years to increase awareness, humanize the sport, and showcase diversity in our game.
Objective
College road trip sought to showcase our players, their grit and their passion for the game. The soul of NCAA March Madness Women’s Basketball has always been the players and coaches. The women who play our game represent dedication, hard work and strive to achieve their dreams. It is through these players; passion is built, and fans have bought in.
Goal 1: Increase Awareness and Build Brand Loyalty in Women’s Basketball as season approaches. We want to keep our players relevant year-round through the off season. By telling these stories and creating a connection with fans, our fans can continue to follow the brand all year long. This will develop a strong connection for our to our players that will flourish in March.
Goal 2: Humanize the Sport through telling the personal stories of the coaches and players. Our campaign aimed to create an emotional connection to our sport. We also showcased the many new aspects of the sport community including NIL.
Goal 3: Showcase Diversity and Inclusion as our game differs from many other collegiate women’s sports. By highlighting the unique backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives of the coaches and players, the campaign spotlighted diversity and inclusion within the sport.
Strategy & Execution
Our social campaign works to connect the fan with the player. We set out to heighten the desire for women’s basketball content by providing fun and entertaining content from all over the country organically led by the players. We knew long-form stories were powerful, but high quantity through short form would elevate the brand of our sport. We approached each stop on the Women’s Basketball College Road Trip with the goal of engaging, quick content designed specifically for the current fans which range from the historians to the next generation of Women’s Basketball.
We met our audience where they were by displaying nearly all our efforts exclusively on social media. We wanted to create content that the players would share and “make their own.” The players and coaches bought in, sharing our content expanding our brand reach across the country. To achieve this, a team of 3 women traveled the country for 10 consecutive weeks to 25 DI NCAA Women’s Basketball powerhouses creating, editing, and posting an average of 50 times per stop. The content was collected, created, and posted in real time while on-site at each stop. (8-hour average visit).
Organizations
- NCAA
Links
Featured
- Aneesah Morrow
- Flau’Jae Johnson
- Angel Reese
- Jaylyn Sherrod
- Kamilla Cardoso
- Paige bueckers
- Raven Johnson
- Jacy Sheldon
- Ayoka Lee
- Azzi Fudd
- Emma Utterback
- Dawn Staley
- Sam Purcell
- Kim Mulkey
- Lynne Roberts
- Alissa Pili
Credits
Daress McClung
Assistant Director of Digital Media
National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)
Autumn Johnson
NCAA
Alexis Pitchford
Digital Media Producer
Jessica Ramberg
Digital Strategist
Celebrate in NYC
Join us for the 6th Annual Hashtag Sports Awards™ on the evening of June 6, 2024 as we celebrate finalists and reveal the winners of this year's awards live during the show.
