ESPNews To Get Marketing Push To Promote Network

ESPN Promoting ESPNews In “Stay Current” Ad Campaign

ESPNews next month will get its “first major marketing support in a push focusing on the advantages of watching” the network, according to Barry Janoff of BRANDWEEK. The “Stay Current” campaign, via Wieden & Kennedy, N.Y., breaks Monday with two 30-second TV spots running across ESPN nets and “possibly ABC,” with support including radio, Internet and print in ESPN The Magazine. The ads take a “humorous look at sports fans whose bad opinions make it seem as if they are talking out of their butts.” In “Mike,” a man tells his friends the Spurs have “no chance this year,” and Millsaps College is “going to the Final Four.” The ad positions ESPNews as the solution to the man’s lack of information. At the end of the spot the man says, “Now I know sports. Better yet, I sound like I know sports” (BRANDWEEK, 1/29 issue).