Somehow, the Atlantic 10’s new branding spots make 6 a.m. workouts look exciting.
The conference’s first attempt at a brand campaign last year focused strictly on basketball. The A-10’s new spots, which debuted within the last few weeks, share the focus with the lifestyle of the college athlete, no matter the sport, at the league’s schools.
Three 30-second spots are running during the A-10’s games on ESPN, CBS Sports Network, NBC Sports Network and SNY.
The Philadelphia-based agency 160Over90 created the spots. The A-10 began working with the agency last year on the “Who Wants Next?” basketball campaign,
and the conference brought it back for this year’s spots.
The first spot opens with an alarm going off at 5:45 a.m., the sun rising over a dorm and athletes from several different sports walking across campus to an early workout. Action was shot on three A-10 campuses — Davidson, LaSalle and Saint Joseph’s.
The agency hired actors to appear in the spots.
Bernadette McGlade, the conference’s longtime commissioner, said the intent was to put more of a spotlight on the athletes and Olympic sports, as well as basketball, for which the A-10 is best known.
“We have gone through so much conference realignment and we weathered the storm pretty well,” McGlade said. “We set out last year to promote our basketball, and this year we wanted to roll out something that would capture the maturation of the full league.”
Brendan Quinn, a veteran of 10 years at 160Over90 as creative director, said sports is a growing part of the practice. The agency also works with the Philadelphia Eagles as well as schools such as Temple, Michigan State and UCLA.
“We wanted to open up the aperture for what the A-10 really stands for,” Quinn said. “It’s known for basketball, but this campaign really expands that out and shows the conference as being really strong from top to bottom. … As fans, we see the games and then the story ends. We wanted to capture the time, commitment and energy that these athletes put into sport and show that story.”
