F
ox Sports’ innovation lab is part of the broadcaster’s DNA, developing on-screen enhancements like ball tracking in baseball and golf and putting microphones in golf holes during the U.S. Open.
Sarah Tourville
FOX NETWORKS,
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, MARKETING PARTNERSHIPS
For the past three years, Sarah Tourville has pushed the lab to become just as innovative during Fox’s ad sales process.
“Advertisers come in to Fox Sports Lab, and it’s so much more than a media plan; it’s a marketing opportunity,” said Tourville, who worked with Discovery Networks and with ESPN before joining Fox Sports in 2013. “I’m consulting with the advertiser and I’m listening to the products that are important to them. We’re no longer just counting commercial impressions.”
Samsung offers a good example of this. The consumer electronics company is pushing its virtual reality products, and that led to Tourville making sure Samsung’s Gear 360 feed is integrated into Fox’s linear broadcasts. “We’re telling Samsung that they are going to be associated every time someone sees a 360 camera as a partner of Fox Sports Lab,” she said.
Samsung agrees. “When Samsung was looking for a media partner to go beyond the traditional boundaries in sports, Sarah’s vision, combined with Fox Sports’ scale, elevated the partnership beyond expectations,” said Jay Altschuler, Samsung Electronics’ vice president of media and partnerships.
Wal-Mart offers another example with “Fox NFL Kickoff,” with product integrations that could see talent on-air inside a Wal-Mart store.
“The integration of content is most important,” Tourville said. “We will offer to produce a significant amount of content that can be distributed exclusively in Wal-Mart’s 5,000 stores.”
— John Ourand
