The ACC, with the help of sponsor Lumber Liquidators, is putting together the conference’s first marketing campaign since its announcement of the new ACC Network.
The first ACC Tailgate Tour will launch Sept. 2 at Syracuse and visit all 14 conference campuses by the end of football season.
A 53-foot-long trailer, fully wrapped with ACC football and Lumber Liquidators branding, will be the centerpiece of the mobile marketing plan. Lumber Liquidators’ agency, Van Wagner Sports & Entertainment, will take the lead on managing the tour. Van Wagner and Rick Jones at FishBait Marketing worked with the sponsor and the ACC on the planning and content.
“We want to make sure that, especially with our newer schools, that our fans know who the teams are in the ACC,” said Tim Lynde, ACC senior associate commissioner for brand marketing. “We’re still building a new brand and we need to do everything we can to spread the brand.”
The campaign marks the ACC’s first initiative to illustrate the league’s football tradition and its more recent success, largely by Florida State and Clemson, since announcing on July 21 that it will launch a linear TV channel.
The mobile tour was planned long before the network announcement was made, dating to the spring when discussions with Lumber Liquidators began to take shape. Even though the tailgate tour was not designed with the network in mind, conference officials see it as an important touch point for fans and a way to further build the ACC football brand.
The content inside the branded trailer will focus on Lumber Liquidators products positioned next to video showing great moments in the ACC. The schools also will work with the tour to deliver former players who will sign autographs at the trailer on game day.
“Lumber Liquidators is based in Virginia, so they’re in the heart of ACC country,” said Bill Barbera, executive vice president of sales and sponsorship for Van Wagner, which has been Lumber Liquidators’ agency for 16 years.
The linear ACC Network isn’t scheduled to launch until 2019, so the conference will not yet start providing information on how cable and satellite subscribers can lobby for the ACC Network. But that day is coming and the mobile tour could become an important tool to build enthusiasm for the ACC’s new channel, which will be owned and operated by ESPN.
Whatever momentum the ACC and ESPN can build for its football and basketball products will be critical to the network’s early distribution talks with cable and satellite operators. Most new channels face stiff headwinds to get on cable and satellite systems at launch.
