March Madness is the trademarked name for the US College Basketball playoffs. It’s important in a sporting sense identifying those players likely to feature at the top of the draft for the NBA. It’s even more important in terms of a proving ground for digital marketing strategies aimed at cutting through to the broad base of the population.
Here are a number of key takeaways from this years tournament which ended in the small hours of yesterday morning.
1. March Madness Brackets, or forecasts of who would progress through each knock out round from 64 teams down to the ultimate winner were completed by 60 million Americans in 2015, including President Barack Obama. They were produced with a variety of prizes by a wide variety of brands, from the New York Times to AT&T, fast food companies to religious groups. People coming back to check their progress provides rich engagement.
2. Sport reaches out to those with spending power. In a survey of 400,000 consumers brands saw a lift in engagement through their March Madness themed ads of 121.3% among those earning over $150,000 versus only 58.7% among those who take home less than $50,000
3. The length of the tournament works for marketers. Car brands achieved an overall 57.2% brand lift through the rounds, as compared to only a 4.2% lift through advertising that runs alongside the Super Bowl in January.
4. McDonalds is not a tournament sponsor but scored highest of the brands for awareness. It supports an Annual All American game for High School graduates, the likely stars of the following years tournament and which has produced stars like Michael Johnson, LeBron James and Magic Johnson in the past. The content produced through this game is reported to have appeared across 600,000 websites and social media channels.
5. According to Kantar Media, the total television ad spend on the three weeks of programmes around March Madness has totalled over $7.5 billion since 2005. The number has trebled over the period, providing one of the biggest boosts to TV advertising throughout the whole year.
6. The rack rate for a 30 second advertising spot for the final game between Duke and Wisconsin was $1.5 Million, three times that which was paid for a similar spot during the final stages of the professional NBA Championship last year.
7. Players in the NCAA are not permitted to earn a single cent from their college playing career. Patience pays though as the average two year deal for players going straight to the NBA is approaching $5 Million.
8. While brands battle it out for sales, the real winner is the sport of Basketball which receives all the branding and hype while making vast sums of money through the sale of TV rights. Sport really delivers a winner all round scenario.
Consumer engagement will be one of the themes at Sport for Business’ Digital Sport 2015 event taking place in Dublin on the morning of October 13th. Click here if you would like to know more about the event, reserve a place or pitch to be involved.
