Menu
Marketing and Sponsorship

The Doctor Will See You: DraftKings Unveils New Ad Campaign For NFL Season

DraftKings has developed a new ad campaign for the upcoming NFL season in collaboration with Deutsch, N.Y. Two different strategies debuted yesterday during ESPN’s Fantasy Football Marathon -- an aspirational “Play” that suggests “you don’t just want to watch; you want to play,” and a more humorous “Dr. Aftkings” that features a fantasy football-focused doctor diagnosing patients for their “earnings dysfunction.” Both themes will be supported by additional executions during the course of the NFL season. Other patients of “Dr. Aftkings” will suffer from “draft-itis” and “lose-onic plague.” The ad campaign represents the first major piece of marketing for DraftKings since its failed bid to merge with rival daily fantasy player FanDuel, and the tone of the ads is less overtly about financial winnings than its full-throttled advertising in ’15. Television spots will be joined by online videos, as well as other social and outdoor executions. “This is a big opportunity to educate the fan base about daily fantasy and evolve from some of the one-dimensional messages that were out there before,” said DraftKings Senior VP/Brand & Creative Don Lane. The company’s planned financial spend behind the campaign was not disclosed, but CMO Janet Holian said the effort will be “much more right-sized for us” compared to ’15. Despite the shifted marketing focus away from prizes, DraftKings still has developed a new $1B contest for Week 1 in which it will award the prize for picking a perfect fantasy lineup under the company’s normal salary cap restrictions. The insurance-backed prize is available in any U.S. state (it does not require any entry fees), Germany, the U.K. and most Canadian provinces. The payout would require receiving $5M per year for 50 years and then receiving $750M in '68. There also is the opting of a $300M lump sum.

 

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2017/08/15/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/DraftKings.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2017/08/15/Marketing-and-Sponsorship/DraftKings.aspx

CLOSE