During the 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament, we created the Buick Human Highlight Reel, a series of stories of former student athletes that have gone on to do amazing things after their college careers ended. Knowing that NCAA fans are among the most affluent of all sports fans, these stories drew powerful reminders and parallels for people who saw their time at that institution as the genesis of their own success story. The student athletes we featured were often people our target admired for their athletic achievements in college and, even though they never played professionally, became successful in other aspects of life.

We promoted the Human Highlight Reel Videos as short-form content during on-air broadcasts to drive to a longer version on line at www.ncaa.com/buick. A 30-minute custom-branded TV show featuring these stories aired prior to the Final Four games and exclusively sponsored by Buick.

Buick’s brand recall during the tournament was 27% higher than the norm and 76% higher than other Buick media. Buick familiarity increased 55% and opinion of Buick as “excellent” increased 170%. During the quarter for the NCAA tournament, Buick sold more cars than any other since 2007 despite no new car introductions for the period.