NBA In-Season Tournament Courts Launch
The 6th Annual Awards
- Best Launch Campaign
ABOUT THIS ENTRY
To align with the first-ever NBA In-Season Tournament, the NBA designed 30 unique courts that teams will play on throughout the event. Used throughout Group Play and the Quarterfinals of the NBA In-Season Tournament, the courts showcased a bold and distinctive design, making it clear to fans when a game carries Tournament implications. The NBA Social team focused on how to uniquely launch the courts across social media.
How does this represent “Excellence in Engagement”?
The unveiling of the NBA In-Season Tournament courts via NBA social media platforms represents excellence in engagement and sets the standard for extending reach around a sports event on social media. Due to the organic virality of the moment, our partners and notable celebrities joined in on the fun around the unveiling; Max developed their own fictional courts based on their catalog of TV shows and movies (including “Game of Thrones,” “Barbie,” “Harry Potter and more), while Grammy Award-winning artist Nicki Minaj created a court design for the launch of her “Pink Friday 2” album. Her interaction with the NBA on X became one of the highest-performing posts of the Championship week.
Objective
The first-ever NBA In-Season Tournament was a new annual competition for all 30 teams that debuted during the 2023-24 NBA season. The Tournament tipped off November 3, 2023 and the Championship was played on December 9, 2023 in Las Vegas. The new format featured “Tournament Nights” from November 3-28 on Tuesdays and Fridays, with knockout rounds beginning in early December. To drive awareness of and promote tune-in for Tournament Nights throughout November, the NBA unveiled official courts that the teams would play on throughout the NBA In-Season Tournament. The courts showcased a bold and distinctive design, making it clear to fans when a game carried Tournament implications. The NBA leveraged its more than 200M followers across @NBA social media platforms to lead the campaign launch, including sharing teaser content that alluded to the bold colorways and unique nature of the courts in the lead-up to the unveiling. The teaser content – which included graphic patterns and anticipatory interviews with some of the NBA’s biggest stars, such as Kevin Durant – built heavy anticipation for the Oct. 30 announcement. The goal was building awareness of the NBA In-Season Tournament, leveraging the unique nature of the courts and building momentum headed into Group Play.
Strategy & Execution
With the goal of raising awareness of the NBA In-Season Tournament game nights, we aligned this launch campaign to lean into the distinct nature of the courts, forcing fans to stop scrolling. The colors of the court, the city edition logos at the center and the NBA Cup details in the paint area around the basket all provided stunning visuals that social platforms can leverage. Starting on October 27, we began posting teaser content with bold color patterns telling fans “you won’t believe your eyes” and that an announcement is coming on October 30. We then leveraged reactions from various NBA All-Stars including Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum and more to tease that a “new look” for the In-Season Tournament is coming. For the official unveiling, we developed video, graphics and animations to showcase all 30 courts and their distinct features. We published vertical videos on X, a thread featuring more than 30 posts and graphics content to entice fans to stop scrolling and consume all the court details. This rollout extended into Group Play games by showcasing highlights and photography in unique ways.
Organizations
- NBA
Links
Credits
Bob Carney
Senior Vice President, Social and Digital Content
NBA
Adam Fedorko
Vice President, Social and Digital Content Creation
NBA
Ashley Atwell
Associate Vice President, Social and Emerging Media Lead
NBA
Justin D’Apolito
Director, Social Content Lead
NBA
Jake Freeman
Senior Manager, Social Content, Content Planning Lead
NBA
Peter Richter
Director, Content Design Lead
NBA
Jenny Fischer
Manager, On-Site Content Creation Lead
NBA
Carly Nevis
Manager, DTC and Vertical Content Creation
NBA
James Johnson
Senior Editor
NBA
Sherman Gomez
Senior Editor
NBA
Leah Berry
Senior Manager, Social and Digital Content Creation Management
NBA
Sarah Crennan
Vice President, Head of Content, DTC
NBA
Patrick Mulrenin
Associate Vice President, Social and Digital Content Publishing
NBA
Kevin Scheitrum
Associate Vice President, Content Optimization
NBA
Brett Michaud
Manager, DTC Operations
NBA
Jenny Whitlock
Senior Vice President, Global Fan Marketing
NBA
Kim Clark
Vice President, Global Fan Marketing
NBA
Alex Gerson
Vice President, Global Fan Marketing
NBA
Tim Hammond
Senior Director, Global Fan Marketing
NBA
Janine Dugre
Senior Vice President, Brand & Creative
NBA
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