It’s fall. It must be time to sit back, tailgate, and watch some football.
Estimated between 15 and 18 million, some football fans are taking their love of the sport to new, digital, heights by drafting real NFL players onto fantasy football teams. The premise of the “sport,” is to allow people to “draft teams of players and compete against other teams based on their players' real gridiron statistics.”
“Predominantly male, married, in a high income bracket and more likely to do research or make purchases online,” the number of fantasy football participants is not only a captive audience, but they’re also growing – with 7-10% growth in the past three years. Most users spend approximately four hours per week on fantasy team management via free sites (Yahoo, ESPN, CBS Sports, etc.).
Coors Light beer, for example, is targeting users via a variety of websites, including Facebook. By using this platform, Coors is targeting specific users (21+), and inundating them with advertisements (display ads and online commercials)—thusly reaching attentive core users who drink their product. In addition to Coors Light, major advertisers for this football season are GMC, McDonald's, Budweiser, Toyota, and Coke.
While I do not play fantasy football myself, I am observant to some ads targeted to this group: Bud Light’s Tailgate Approved ads are the specific example that comes to mind. On the Tailgate Approved micro site, not only are there a variety of tailgate essentials and games, but also the Fantasy Football Namerator to assist in choosing one’s fantasy football team name (in essence a word slot machine that make a nonsensical fantasy football team name).
I think that the popularity of fantasty football will continue to grow, and the intensity of the advertising campaigns will follow suit. In the future, I expect more products targeted at the male audience (like Gillette, Axe, and maybe even Viagra) to be more visible online, especially on fantasty football sites.
References:
http://www.nfl.com/
http://adage.com/article?article_id=139005
http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/11/news/companies/fantasyfootball/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORrqdkDYnoM
http://www.tailgateapproved.com/tg/#/home
About Me
- eckramer
- Growing up in Atlanta, GA, I moved to New Orleans, LA to achieve my BBA in Marketing and Management from Loyola University New Orleans. After being displaced by Hurricane Katrina, I spent a semester at Georgia State University, but was able to return to New Orleans to achieve my degree. Following graduation, I returned to Atlanta to pursue a coveted career in advertising. Currently, I am working as an assistant traffic manager at a prestigious advertising agency. I am a self-motivated, organized, detail-oriented, advertising professional with a strong sense of project ownership and proactive approach to issue resolution. Although my background has been primarily focused on online media, I have the ambition to learn and master new technologies, processes, departments, and other innovative facets of the advertising industry including broadcast and print production, public relations, communications, and strategy. I interact with a variety of people, personalities, and overcome unique challenges on a daily basis in a highly-dynamic environment under strict deadlines. I am always looking to increase success for myself, my agency, and our clients.