Hotels.com was on a mission to become famous for hotel matchmaking, and with its millions of fans and mountains of cultural influence, the NBA was an ideal partner to help drive fame. However, with over 48 sponsors, many with cultural cachet and ingrained presence in basketball, how does a new sponsor muscle its way in? Every fan understands the role of a brand like Gatorade or Nike in basketball, but why would they care about a brand that sold hotel rooms?

With our NBA work we aimed to distinctly embed ourselves in NBA culture, as well as grow our brand equity and fame as a hotel matchmaker with NBA fans.

NBA players spend half the season on the road, yet they still post great stats night after night. Essentially, they’re travel experts who happen to be very tall.

We paired our very own expertise with the expertise of one of the league's top athletes to give our consumers the insider knowledge they need to Hotel Like a Pro. Nikola Jokic of the Denver Nuggets taught his rookie, Peyton Watson, how to find a pet friendly hotel.

68% of NBA fans have a favorite player – the highest level among fans of any pro-sport (vs. only 48% for Major League Baseball).

We understood that our way into NBA culture wasn’t the teams, or the league, but the players. But what did they have to do with travel?

With 41 away games during the regular season, 41 nights checking-in hotels all over the country, all this supplemented by pre and post season games and training camps where players are finding themselves in a new place and in a new bed, it became clear to us: NBA players are not just pro-athletes, they're pro-travellers with very specific requirements, needs and demands. After all, it's not easy finding a hotel bed that can accommodate a 6''10 man.

Their specific needs and high volume of hotel usage led to our core insight: NBA players are the ultimate power users of hotels.

Our films had NBA fans and basketball culture buzzing. With mentions across notable sports and basketball outlets such as Sports Illustrated, Barstool Sports and ESPN, the work created 102 PR stories - 20X more than our previous season.

Across social, the go-to court for basketball conversation, our audience was hooked. “Pony” had almost doubled the view-through-rate on platforms such as Tik Tok.

Our brightest moment came February 25th. During a Nuggets v. Warriors game on ESPN, beloved veteran commentator, Mark Jones, gave “Pony” a special shoutout, citing the spot as “a fantastic commercial” and playfully referring to it as “Oscar-worthy.” Now that’s a slam dunk.