NFL fans, players, sponsors and media rights holders will be dreaming about Super Bowl XLI for the next 10 months — and dreaming is the centerpiece of the marketing platform the league has built around next year’schampionship game in Miami.
Activation begins this week with a “Dreams Start Here.” tag line for the NFL draft. Continuing through the various seasonal promotional platforms, that tag line evolves into “One Game. Get Ready.” for training camp; “One Game. One Dream.” for the NFL Kickoff season opener; “One Tradition.” for Thanksgiving; and “One Game. One Dream.” and “One Game. One Dream. One Champion.” for the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl.
Last year’s “Road to Forty” thematic tied in nicely with host city Detroit and the 40th anniversary celebration. Along with the accompanying XL logo, each developed considerable cachet on their own right. As a result, NFL sponsors jumped on board early, activating a yearlong marketing platform for the Super Bowl of the type the league had been talking about for more than a decade. By the league’s own metrics, sponsor support behind last year’s “Road to Forty” and XL thematics totaled more than $330 million.
However, an anniversary is easy to rally around. Will the NFL be able to muster the same kind of enthusiasm among corporate marketers for something as relatively pedestrian as XLI?
“We’ve learned a lot about developing extendable media and sponsorship platforms that can be used in a number of ways, so the early answer is yes,” said Peter Murray, NFL vice president, partnership marketing and corporate sales.
“The two biggest things we learned are to make sure our platform is flexible enough to use all year and to spend even more time with our partners to brainstorm,” said Michael Capiraso, NFL vice president and executive creative director. Capiraso added: “Everyone has dreams — fans, players and teams — and because the NFL is only one game a week, that number one is powerful as well. Because of the success of last year, we have people saying we can really get more out of our relationship if we do this.”
The consortium of Omnicom agencies, including BBDO, New York, will help turn the “dreams” concept into a seasonlong brand campaign.
Aside from being an integral part of the marketing thematic, the Roman number “I” is also an important part of the logo for Super Bowl XLI. In it, the one is represented by an orange football pylon and the “One Game. One Dream.” line is incorporated in the logo. The colors are turquoise and orange, which are also used by the host Miami Dolphins. A football is also part of the logo itself, for only the second time.
The NFL is hopeful the pylon itself will catch on as a symbol for its championship, in the same way it used an odometer to roll through all the Super Bowls leading up to XL. There are plans for licensed products with the pylon, like clocks and schedules. NFL licensees annually sell more than $100 million of generic and team-specific licensed Super Bowl merchandise.
