Attendees of a recent open house in Los Angeles may have known something unusual was going to happen—but being part of a major ad campaign for NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV still might have come as something of a jump scare.
“They come in under the premise that it’s just some sort of NFL-themed survey in an open house,” Michael Krivicka, founder and director of whoisthebaldguy, an agency YouTube enlisted to help pull off the campaign, said. “A good setup is part of the magic.”
In a stunt filmed for a fall football-themed campaign, participants are handed popcorn and asked to settle onto a couch before being surprised by a group of football players and football announcers bursting through the walls. Gasps, curses, and laughs abound, along with plenty of popcorn flying.
Creators Haley Kalil and Joe Mele were on hand behind-the-scenes, Punk’d-style, to help facilitate the prank, which ends with another surprise: the appearance of former NFL tight end Shannon Sharpe, who told them they’d get free access to NFL Sunday Ticket in exchange for their participation in the stunt.
The elaborate prank is just one part of YouTube TV’s massive marketing efforts for its second season as the exclusive home of Sunday Ticket. The streamer recently debuted a 45-second spot referencing various NFL teams’ mascots to promote the offering, and it plans to partner with creators through fantasy football and other content collabs throughout the season.
It’s all part of a larger effort by YouTube to involve more creators in its Sunday Ticket marketing, Angela Courtin, VP, marketing, creative, and connected TV at YouTube, told Marketing Brew.
New fans, old fans
Last season YouTube did some creator work to help promote NFL Sunday Ticket, including designating a “creator of the week” to create YouTube Shorts content around games and allowing creators to tap into its Access Pass Program and use official NFL footage in their own videos. Its creator collabs last season included vlogger Casey Neistat and content creator Katie Feeney.
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After the inaugural season, Courtin said the marketing team determined that it would be valuable to partner with even more creators to help Sunday Ticket reach a wider audience.
Kalil, who has partnered with YouTube in the past, including around the last season of Sunday Ticket, has nearly 6 million followers on Instagram, and she told us that she’s a football fan who jumped at the opportunity to make football-adjacent creator content. Sharpe, who since retiring from the NFL has become a creator himself, has a YouTube following for his podcast Club Shay Shay that’s grown to over 3 million, while Mele counts almost 8 million subscribers to his YouTube channel.
Partnering with Kalil and other creators has been useful for YouTube in “expanding the aperture of what a fan looks like,” Courtin said, and has also helped YouTube build “a two-way relationship” with creators and help them support their own goals.
Sweet, sweet fantasy
YouTube plans to continue to work with creators throughout the season. Last month, 2015 NFL MVP Cam Newton, four-time Super Bowl champ Rob Gronkowski, and several creators, including Feeney, participated in the Ultimate Fantasy Draft presented by NFL Sunday Ticket and FanDuel, a live, interactive fantasy football draft show that was livestreamed on the NFL’s YouTube channel.
“Fantasy is such a huge part of football culture now,” Courtin said. “Our job is to invite as many people into the culture of football.”
Creator content will also continue to support Sunday Ticket marketing. Kalil told Marketing Brew that she has filmed extensive content around Sunday Ticket, which she said will be posted on her social channels all season long.