DIRECTV needed a way to promote and differentiate its exclusive, premium NFL SUNDAY TICKET product in a new and exciting way beyond its traditional TV campaign. NFL SUNDAY TICKET is the only way consumers can watch every single second of every single NFL game, from start to finish at home and on their mobile device.

To win the consumer’s attention, DIRECTV cleverly disguised a commercial for NFL SUNDAY TICKET as entertainment consumers wanted to watch and share with their friends over and over. DIRECTV got two of the most iconic NFL players, Peyton and Eli Manning, to star in a 90’s era-style hip hop video rapping about the ability to watch football on your phone with NFL SUNDAY TICKET.

DIRECTV launched the video during the first week of pre-season, in August, when NFL fans’ anticipation was first piqued for the upcoming season. To drive buzz and momentum, key PR tactics were used:

• Paid celebrity tweeters sent out a link of the video to their millions of followers

• Seeded the video with various sports-focused blogs and influencers to get the word out on launch day

• Secured 600 unique PR placements

When you have a TV campaign that people seem to like, it seeps into pop culture. When it seeps into pop culture, fans create thousands of their own stories online. When they create their own stories, you invite them to make one with you on Twitter. When you invite them to make one with you, you create the first Twitter-generated Get Rid Of Cable Story, which you make into a YouTube film and give back to the fans.

DIRECTV accomplished what it set out to do by creating even more cultural cachet and love for the brand.

• 1,300,000 Twitter impressions and 36,200 social media impressions with the #getridofcable hashtag which resulted in 27,400 consumer interactions in less than seven days with just $9,000 paid media support.

• 4,647,912 UVPMs for the total Twitter campaign.