Fast Fact – NCAA Tournament Kickoff and OOH
March is officially about to get “mad” – the annual NCAA Tournament is just about to get underway, and the excitement is already palpable. In addition to being St. Patrick’s Day, this Sunday, March 17th, will be “Selection Sunday”, which is an event that sets the tone for the proceeding tournament. In this event, the teams are chosen, ranked, and placed in the conference bracket, with the actual games beginning on Mar. 19th.
According to EVP of ad sales at Warner Bros. Discovery, Jon Diament, the ad space for this year’s tournament on CBS and TNT is “basically sold out”, and is expected to break revenue records. This poses a number of interesting opportunities for OOH in the coming weeks throughout the tournament.
Of course, the primary audience for the ads being broadcast during the tournament is those who are currently watching – but what about those who are not in front of a TV, who are out and about, and may be looking to catch other games later?
Here, OOH is particularly powerful. There are a variety of ways our medium can be leveraged creatively to bolster support during the tournament. At a local level, OOH assets can be utilized to show support for nearby teams competing in the tournament, while also increasing awareness and support from those who live in the area.
On the Digital and Programmatic side of things, game match-ups and start times can be readily displayed and used to inform consumers about upcoming games.
Beyond that, given the number of TV ad spots that will accompany the games, there is ample opportunity for cross-channel consistency, providing repeat exposures for brands and campaigns on OOH in conjunction with the broadcasts.
Much in the way that writing by hand vs. typing can provide a more tactile experience, so too can OOH within a consumer’s world; as a physical ad medium, encountered in a real-world space, OOH is well-equipped at connecting with consumers in a tangible way. This, combined with the madness of March, can be a winning combination.
Here are just a few examples that show the scale OOH can provide when trying to reach this audience. In 1 week, the inventory Geopath audits generates:
1.8 billion impressions among those that report having attended a college basketball game in the past 12 months
12 billion impressions among those that have used the internet/app for sports scores/updates in the past 30 days
5 billion impressions among those that have been to a sports bar in the past 30 days.