To create a casual atmosphere, each guest slips on a pair of purple Metro socks before hopping on the couchUFC
UFC 229 is slated to set all kinds of box office and PPV records, and officials from prepaid wireless brand MetroPCS are hoping the heightened interest in the card headlined by Conor McGregor-Khabib Nurmagomedov results in a spike for its Purple Couch pre-fight show. The show airs across all Metro social channels, and this will be the 15th Purple Couch show to air over the last two years. The past episodes have averaged nearly 2.5 million live viewers. “We really expected to potentially cherry pick the right fights with the highest engagement, but then we just saw the growth continue regardless of the fight,” said Lagardère Plus President/Americas Kern Egan, whose company develops the overall sponsorship strategy and program management for Metro. “The fans were interested and starting to expect this content from us when it was a pay-per-view whether it was a huge fight or just sort of an average fight.” The show on Saturday will be hosted by UFC HOFer Forrest Griffin and feature current and former fighters discussing both the upcoming fight and the UFC in general. Broadcast on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, the show is meant to feel like the analysts are having a causal conversation in viewers’ living rooms, so each guest slips on a pair of purple Metro socks before hopping on the couch. Metro’s activation/production agency, Rooftop2 Productions, handles the ideation, creative execution, live production, staging, and broadcasting of the show.
ONE OF A KIND: Egan said the idea behind the show “wasn’t about longer commercials or simple documentaries with brand integration.” He said, “We had to find a space within the viewing and media consumption behavior of the fan where Metro could authentically come in and create an opportunity to make the experience better for the fan.” There are five live branded segments during the show with analysis on the fight. Fans can interact directly with the fighters via Reddit’s MMA channel and win PPV access codes leading up to when the main event begins. “There is certainly plenty of brands that are getting exposure online and offline with programming like this because they are advertising with or buying brand integration with media or rights holder properties,” Egan said. “But for a sponsor to actually be the media platform and control all of the production in a way that is uniquely engaging for a fan but also beneficial to the brand/sponsor at the same time, we think is really unique in its space.” Previously called the MetroPCS Purple Couch, the show will now be named Metro by T-Mobile Purple Couch, ahead of the company’s official rebranding on Monday.
