ESPN 'Says Go With Your Gut' in March Madness Campaign from BSSP

Every year, millions of fans turn to multimedia sports company, ESPN to carefully curate their brackets for the largest college basketball tournament in the U.S. From fans and novices to former players and coaches alike, no matter your knowledge of the sport, everyone makes their picks and holds their breath. Correctly filling out a bracket can seem daunting, especially to casual fans. So this year, ESPN is encouraging everyone to trust their instincts and “go with your gut”!

In a new integrated campaign for its annual Tournament Challenge bracket game - aimed at bringing previous fans back and engaging new, casual sports fans - ESPN is launching three new spots today ahead of the men’s and women’s brackets opening on Sunday, March 12th where the brand plays into the uncertainty, madness and chaos surrounding brackets.

Created alongside long-time agency partner Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners (BSSP), the new 'Go With Your Gut' spots highlight how, when it comes to the tournament, anything can happen. Like top seeds losing early or underdogs going all the way, there is no surefire way of predicting the outcome. From a woman coming across an azure-hooded blue jay and believing “Creighton will fly through the early rounds” to a man feeling a little husky, “like UConn” in his dress shirt, the creative shows fans going with their gut based on epiphanies.

Building on the momentum from last year’s Tournament Challenge, and ESPN’s equal focus surrounding the Men’s and Women’s games, this new campaign empowers everyone to embrace the madness of it all, ignore the statistics and analytics, and just trust their intuition (or signs from the universe) when filling out their brackets. 

Robyn Tenenbaum, creative director at BSSP, says: "ESPN’s Tournament Challenge continues to be the #1 March Madness Bracket Challenge, but so many fans who don’t know much about college basketball are scared to get involved. With this new effort, we wanted to embrace the fact that statistically, no one – not even the most well informed super fan – is capable of filling out the perfect bracket. The uncertainty and the madness and the chaos are really what make Tournament Challenge so engaging and so easy to love. We wanted the creative to highlight that feeling."

Seth Ader, VP, brand marketing at ESPN, said: "ESPN Tournament Challenge continues to be the No. 1 bracket game and consistently reaches a younger, more casual audience between the men’s and women’s games. We’re encouraging fans to go with their gut and embrace the roller coaster of emotions that March college basketball brings us."

'Go With Your Gut' will run across broadcast, streaming, digital, audio and social. Alongside the video assets, BSSP also produced the digital toolkit for ESPN to use across all touchpoints.