CASE STUDY
ESPN BET
Awareness, understanding, engagement: helping ESPN BET hit the advertising trifecta
Challenge
ESPN BET is a sportsbook app owned and operated by PENN Entertainment in partnership with ESPN. To break through the noise in a crowded sports betting space, they needed a campaign to lean hard into the app’s distinctive and competitive reasons to believe (RTBs).
Solution
While advertising campaigns often struggle to reconcile the tension between brand prominence, product information and audience entertainment, we developed a creative concept designed to bring them together —utilizing a comedic situation to showcase ESPN BET’s key features, and make the product the undisputed star of the show.
Each spot features two fans: one knows all about ESPN BET, while the other muses fondly about the advantages “if there was an ESPN sports betting app.” The in-the-know friend tries in vain to explain that, in fact, they do, and it’s great – going so far as to show their friend the app on their phone. Lost in thought, their unaware friend continues to describe a product that clearly already exists.
A comedic reveal underscores the obliviousness : An ESPN BET blimp slowly passing by in one and a towering ESPN BET mural behind our characters in the other.
The spots were conceived and shot in a way that further versioning could be created through new audio and graphics options—a modular approach that opened the door to accommodating different RTBs and features as the need arose.
Results
The campaign is live on national and regional TV as well as on ESPN.com. The ads complement the busy sport season of March Madness, NBA and NHL Playoffs, and PGA tournaments.
“Prophet was a great, multidisciplinary partner who brought our campaign strategy and creative concept to life, from production through to launch. I appreciated how they engaged with the insights in our brief — approaching them thoughtfully and translating them into smart, creative work that delivered on the challenge.”
Ahmed Elfeky
Vice President Brand Media