Players need a coach to get better; the same goes for fans. We tapped Modern Family’s Eric Stonestreet as the Fan Coach who inspires college football fans to be their best.

For 15 weeks, Coach humorously issued a unique challenge, fans captured it with their smartphones, and shared it with #BeTheFan in hopes of winning a weekly VIP ESPN College GameDay trip.

This came to life for fans through a 2-minute roadblock during ESPN’s broadcast. First, a 30-second promo, leading into Coach’s 60-second challenge, followed by a live billboard and shot of a #BeTheFan sweeps winner on the GameDay set.

At the end of 15 weeks, we'd incorporated all of AT&T’s sponsored properties in contextually-relevant content to keep fans engaged all season long, including 15 distinct 60-second spots; three 30-second promo spots; and 600 pieces of social and digital content.

Most important, #BeTheFan drove a 12% increase in positive sentiment for the AT&T brand.

In addition…

-- Social conversation volume increased 332%

-- Earned impressions jumped 423%

-- We experienced a 238% lift in visits to our site

-- The program drove more than 2.4 million social engagements

-- Our Facebook engagement rate surpassed the AT&T brand benchmark by 164%