DirecTV Enlists Mannings For Campaign Designed To Increase "Sunday Ticket" Base

DirecTV’s new ads for its “NFL Sunday Ticket” package starring Broncos QB Peyton Manning and Giants QB Eli Manning are part of a “multiplatform campaign that touts the benefits of the out-of-market live-game package, including a major price reduction from last season’s offer,” according to R. Thomas Umstead of MULTICHANNEL NEWS. The move comes as DirecTV “looks to turn around a recent stumble on the subscriber front: It reported a new reduction of 52,000 subscribers in the second quarter of 2012, the first such loss in the company’s history.” DirecTV has “an estimated 2 million to 3 million Sunday Ticket buyers out of a total subscriber base of about 20 million.” The company is running the first of nine promos featuring the Mannings as "fairy godfathers.” The ads “continue a campaign launched last year" with Pro Football HOFer Deion Sanders, who also is featured in ads this season. DirecTV VP/Marketing Alex Kaplan said that he “expects to see growing mobile views of Sunday Ticket games, after posting ‘significant’ increases last season.” Kaplan said, “All of our product research says that the primary reason people order Sunday Ticket is for the linear product -- even those who use the mobile product” (MULTICHANNEL NEWS, 8/13 issue).

WELCOME TO THE TEAM: Broncos VP/Corporate Partnerships Brady Kellogg said that the team has “signed agreements with two more companies that sponsor" Peyton Manning: DirecTV and Papa John’s Pizza. Kellogg said that the Broncos had “been in discussions with both companies before signing Manning.” Kellogg: “They were a part of ongoing business efforts, but Manning really helped” (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 8/13 issue).