According to Brandweek, ESPN is launching a new promotional series for NBA coverage on its family of networks. The ads, which will feature Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and others, will show animated versions of the players “attempting to surpass something they already have achieved on the court”.
Here is one example given in the Brandweek article:
In “The Feats,” we see Bryant at a High Striker, the hammer-and-bell device found at carnivals with which participants test their strength. Instead of a hammer, however, he slams a Spalding basketball on the platform to send a projectile up the tower. In reference to the 81 points he scored in a game last January, the tower is marked by increasingly difficult levels that read 70, 80, 90 and, at the top, 100, the number of points Wilt Chamberlain scored in 1962 to set an NBA single-game record. Bryant changed his Los Angeles Lakers uniform number this season from 8 to 24, which a voiceover acknowledges with: “Will Kobe show us that 24 is greater than 100?”
ESPN’s ad campaigns have become increasingly more ambitious. The “Is it Monday Yet” ads, which have been irritating now for going on the past two months, the “This is SportsCenter” ads and now this. Maybe come spring we’ll see Alex Rodriguez represented by a talking gecko.
