The Eyes Of March: Ad Spending For Tournament Sets Record

Nissan Lampoons Recruiting Process In New Campaign

Ad spending for this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament is “expected to hit another record, $500[M], from about $468[M] in 2005,” according to Julie Bosman of the N.Y. TIMES. Sony will break a 30-second spot, via McKinney & Silver, Durham, today on CBS’ tournament broadcast that “depicts the legendary 1992 Kentucky-Duke game, but on a mock-up set with basketball players as plastic mannequins.” Nissan has a campaign, via TBWA/Chiat/Day, L.A., on ESPN.com that features three two-minute e-mailable videos “lampooning the frenzied searches for basketball talent.” In the first video, a fictional coach named Rich Utzinger from fictional East Southern Central State “trolls rural Georgia in a Nissan Frontier pickup, hoping to recruit the next hot young undiscovered star.” NCAA Corporate Partner The Hartford launches a print and TV campaign today continuing the company’s Red Hart Stag mascot campaign. Papa John’s is again partnering with Sporting News for a bracket pool but this year “will give away one million pizzas, to be divided equally among all entrants on the Sporting News Web site,” should any entrant correctly predict all 63 tournament games (N.Y. TIMES, 3/16). SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL’s Andy Bernstein reports price increases for ads on CBS’ coverage “were less than 10[%] compared with last year, on a cost-per-thousand-viewer basis” (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 3/13 issue).

SING ALONG: AD AGE’s MADISON & VINE’s Jean Halliday reports NCAA Corporate Champion Pontiac is “using the high-energy, sports-themed song ‘Lights Out’” from the band P.O.D. as part of its campaign around the tournament. The song will be played on CBS’ broadcast of the tournament, in all six of Pontiac’s TV ads and four radio spots, as well as in a new music video on Pontiac’s Web site. The video “shows the four band members arriving at a gig in two Pontiac Solstice roadsters.” Pontiac used P.O.D.’s song “Boom” in its tournament TV spots in ‘04. CBS Senior VP/Sports Sales & Marketing Chris Simko said that Pontiac “brought the band’s song to CBS and asked how it could leverage it during NCAA ‘Road to the Final Four’ broadcasts.” Simko added that it was the “first time a marketer had brought CBS a totally new kind of music to integrate into the NCAA broadcasts.” Simko: “It’s the marketer as almost the content provider working with CBS and the NCAA” (MADISON & VINE, 3/15 issue). In addition, Pontiac is working in conjunction with 2K Sports on the first online Pontiac Virtual NCAA Final Four tournament. Owners of the College Hoops 2K6 videogame can compete online until March 28 for a chance to compete in a tournament held March 31 in Indianapolis, the site of the Final Four. The winner will receive tickets to the NCAA championship game April 3 and an Xbox 360. CBS will air footage from the event during its Final Four pregame show April 1 (Pontiac).