We created a campaign for avid sports fans…starring two massively avid sports fans, Steve and Vic. Steve and Vic didn’t want to miss a minute of the live games or ESPN shows they love. For them, watching live on WatchESPN was clutch in countless ways. Missing out on watching live, not clutch. It was that simple. To help build understanding, we leaned into relatable use case scenarios that users had reported in research (work, airport, coffee shop, etc.) and showed how the WatchESPN product came through in the clutch in actual scenarios on an array of devices. The films ran across ESPN networks and always featured sports programming that was currently on ESPN’s air to maintain relevance among Avids.

Our content was inspired by real clutch-watching scenarios and was tailored across different sports and seasons. Live TV drop-ins also reminded users about the app during ESPN broadcasts.

As word spread, we inspired people to show their passion for WatchESPN and become a part of the campaign themselves. We developed an experiential website that let fans share their own stories of WatchESPN clutchness with the world. The best were animated and produced in the same style as our films. Fans could also create and voice their unique likenesses in our clutch portrait builder, and share their creations with the world.

The campaign was effectively clutch; increasing Avids’ understanding of WatchESPN by 39% from the year prior. The number of downloads for the app also increased by 17% YO and usage, in the form of monthly visits to the app, rose 101% YOY. Organic growth in usage (ratio of monthly average minutes viewed to distribution growth change) was 8.6 to 1 (354%:41%).