Own the NFL Post Season in Topgolf Spot with ESPN’s Keyshawn Johnson and Elle Duncan
For 22 weeks a year, NFL fans know exactly what they’re doing each weekend – watching their teams duke it out on the field. And after the Super Bowl, the comedown is real. Hardcore and casual fans alike ask themselves, “now what?”
Enter Topgolf – where it’s 100% golf and 100% not golf - so everyone can play, even if no one can golf.
In its largest global brand campaign to date, Topgolf wants to 'own' the postseason. And to own the post-season, the brand is foregoing the Big Game itself in favour of the post-game – just when fans’ post-season blues are setting in.
Topgolf worked with ESPN Creative Studio and media agency Mediahub and its R+D Lab to develop and shoot the spot in just two weeks.
The media strategy is as noteworthy as the creative – it’s one of the first brands (if not the first) to strategically use post-game coverage first. Whereas the trend has been to release spots earlier and earlier, Topgolf is flipping that on its head.
The spot features ESPN talent Keyshawn Johnson and Elle Duncan, as well as Gary Striewski, Nicole Briscoe, and Omar Raja. It opens on Keyshawn and Elle on-set in Bristol, CT, watching the final moments of the season - and as the exhilaration of crowning a winning team gives way to the ennui of the off-season.
In ESPN’s signature off-beat tone, we cut to see Elle and Keyshawn racing through buildings across ESPN’s campus, pushing ahead of one another, putting on winter outdoor wear as they go. They come to a staircase where someone has tacked up a sign that says “RoofTopgolf”. They rush up the stairs and we cut to see them emerge at ESPN’s own makeshift (and fairly inferior) Topgolf: a few folding chairs, a foreman grill, and some lights. We pan to see a few other ESPN employees, including Gary, Omar and Nicole have beat them there, and are taking swings at “targets” across the campus. Cold, hungry, and having broken a few windows on campus, Elle and Keyshawn agree they’d be better off heading to the real Topgolf.
“With so much uncertainty in the world, tuning into an NFL game on Sunday becomes one of the only things 66 million Americans can rely on in the fall. But after a five-and-a-half-month season fans are forced to fill a massive void in their routines,” said Alan Fox, SVP, Insights + Action, Mediahub. “We know Topgolf is the perfect antidote to the off-season blues and the answer to everyone’s lingering question: ‘now what?’”
ESPN is an incredible and culturally relevant media brand known for constantly innovating in sports media and attracting new fans to the genre – so it was a natural partner for Topgolf, the modern golf entertainment brand that is becoming the ultimate instigator of play.
“We were thrilled to work with Elle Duncan and Keyshawn Johnson as our anchor talent. They both represent the fun and charisma of Topgolf and the cool insider spirit of our “don’t tell the bosses” RoofTopgolf creative”, said Betsy Rosenbloom, senior media creative, Mediahub. “Gary and Omar are the literal faces of ESPN on social and having them already on the roof — is exactly how we envision them in real life: ahead of the curve and always having fun. We got to build this whole world around our idea - it almost felt like our :30s spot was a little piece of scripted TV that we got to produce. We know RoofTopgolf isn’t real — but after watching it come to life, I think we all wish it was.”
“The power of a partner like ESPN, outside of the obvious sports culture reach and relevancy, is how many talented and creative people work there,” said Scott McGowan, senior media creative, R+D Lab, Mediahub. “So when you have an unbelievable idea, on an even more impossible timeline, the one thing you know is that ESPN and their Creative Works studio will find a way to make it happen. There is something about the hustle of people who love sports and from the very spark of this idea everyone rallied around the concept and the strategy and then pulled off the improbable without breaking a sweat.”
