Now that all the advertising frenzy around the Super Bowl has died down, it’s time to gear up for March Madness.
The iconic college basketball championship tournament begins in less than a month on March 15 and runs through April 6.
As a promotional tie-in event, March Madness offers an arena full of video campaign opportunities for the nimble brand advertiser:
- Regional and location-based promotions—The tournament bracket is broken into four regions—South, West, East and Midwest—with each region ultimately sending a team to the Final Four in April.
You also have 65 college towns—plus the cities that are hosting the games this year, like Cleveland, LA, Houston, Syracuse and Indianapolis.
Run your product promos at the right times in all or select locations. Change up your product promo or create escalating offers as the tournament progresses.
Fanbase-based promotions—Alumni and team supporters are everywhere but you can leverage video’s ad personalization technology and campaign micro-targeting to reach them throughout the tournament, wherever they are located.
Drive fans to your store locations and reward both the winners and losers through each round, by redeeming one offer for customers wearing gear from the winning team and another offer for losing team supporters.
By drawing on consumers’ passions for their chosen teams, you can greatly improve brand lift metrics like attitude, favorability and preference during your video ad campaign.
Tournament jargon-based promotions—Like all big sports events, the NCAA Tournament has its own jargon that offers promotional possibilities at various times during the schedule, such as Cinderella teams, Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four.
Leverage the massive currency of these terms by creating promotions that frame your products or offers as “Sweet” or “Elite,” for example, during different phases of the tournament.
Fanbase-based promotions—Alumni and team supporters are everywhere but you can leverage video’s ad personalization technology and campaign micro-targeting to reach them throughout the tournament, wherever they are located. 
Tournament jargon-based promotions—Like all big sports events, the NCAA Tournament has its own jargon that offers promotional possibilities at various times during the schedule, such as Cinderella teams, Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight and Final Four. The big question is, how do you execute video ad campaigns like that? You need a platform that combines the ability to produce variable versions of personalized commercials and deliver them to micro-targeted audiences at scale.
Take a look at how Wendy’s used Sightly’s TargetView™ platform to deliver a sports event tie-in campaign that promoted three new menu items during different day parts in several DMAs, and also leveraged the kickoff of the college football season last fall: