For the first time in history, the NBA All-Star game was coming to Toronto, Canada. BMO, being an official sponsor, wanted to give fans a new perspective of the game.

Our solution was to create the first ever spoke-ball - a talking basketball named Ball-Star, who had a big personality, and presented All-Star 2016 from his unique point of view.

10 films were created featuring the Ball-Star. But he didn’t just live on TV. Online ads ran on NBA.com, and we created a remote control, talking basketball (think BB-8 from Star Wars) who appeared at events throughout the weekend.

While the mass campaign entertained fans, and generated awareness of our sponsorship, the hero of our campaign was a two-day Twitter takeover. We handed the keys of BMO’s Twitter feed to our talking (and typing?) basketball. He live-tweeted All-Star weekend, posted new content and responded to fans in real-time.

During the week leading up to the All-Star Game, we launched a series of videos and online ads, featuring the BMO Ball-Star. These communications announced that the Ball-Star would be taking over BMO’s Twitter feed the weekend to come.

A war room was assembled for the All-Star weekend. In 48 hours, we created over 175 social posts, responding to fans and events at the game, in real-time.

During intermissions, contextual commercials were aired on TV that showed the Ball-Star staying loose between quarters and getting treatment at the half. It all added up to a 360 experience for consumers – reaching NBA fans at every touchpoint throughout the game.

The results of the All-Star campaign were the most successful BMO has seen. Our Ball-Star was able to break through the clutter, in a sport’s category where banks are normally irrelevant.

But most importantly, we connected with our target (young, diverse NBA fans) at spectacular rates. In only 2 days, our real-time Twitter takeover earned:

- 18% engagement rate (versus typical industry engagement rates at 1%-2%)

- 500K+ total engagements on Twitter

- 7.3MM total impressions on Twitter

All in, with our films included, our campaign generated over 28 million impressions. And in the words of Twitter:

"BMO’s activation around the NBA All-Star Game was best in class, achieving some of the highest engagement rates we’ve ever seen on the platform. In addition, their live tweeting war room was one of the most effective and responsive approaches created by a partner."