Camden Bernatz (00:00:02) - Welcome to brands and campaigns, the stories and people behind clever marketing moves powered by EKR. I'm your host, Camden Bernatz, creative director and head of brand strategy at EKR. Welcome back to Brands and Campaigns. Today. I'm really excited about this episode. It's also a very timely episode because if you're hearing this, the day that we're dropping it, it is the day before the NFL season begins here in the United States. And this campaign has to do with the NFL, specifically, a kind of league that's connected to the league, which is fantasy football. So today I'm joined by two strategists and a creative director from Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners or BSS and P to talk about a campaign they did for ESPN that is focused on fantasy football, kind of a continuation of, only in fantasy campaign. That is for the 2024 2025 season. So as always, this being a podcast, we don't have, you know, video playing that shows these different video ads. So I encourage you to go check this out either.
Camden Bernatz (00:01:09) - If you haven't seen it in real-time, you can go find it, you know, probably on YouTube or I'm looking at AD Age article right now. There's a series of really clever video installments of this campaign that really. And I won't get too into the details because I want my guests here to explain it and how it came to be. But the way I describe it is very focused understanding of like what it means to be part of a very specific group or experience. And so it's not just talking about what is fantasy football or how you can join this year or things like that. It is focusing on things that only people who are really into fantasy football understanding and experience, and it really resonates with a specific audience. And not just fantasy football now, but fantasy football over time. And so only in fantasy, I believe is the name of the Campaign, and I'm joined today by Sinan Dagli, executive creative director at BSS and P, and Jake Bayham, head of strategy. Thank you to you both for being here today.
Jake Bayham (00:02:08) - Thanks for having us. Good to be here to chat fantasy.
Camden Bernatz (00:02:11) - Yeah. Yeah, we I'm excited about this one, not only because it's it's very timely when it is coming out, but it's I just love the work. That's why we wanted to have you on here. So before we get into some of the more specific details, let us know. How did this, my my understanding is this is kind of, the latest installment of a campaign that's happened before in years past. So can you give us a little background in kind of the history development of this only and fantasy campaign?
Jake Bayham (00:02:38) - Yeah, I can jump in there. so it actually started off with, a sort of a small project pitch for their ESPN's, you know, a year's campaign in 2019. And, we ended up winning that pitch. And right when we sort of came on board, they had done a bunch of consumer research, and we dug into that research with them, and we found like two really clear things.
Jake Bayham (00:03:02) - You know, one was that the key barrier is sort of like time and complexity, of participating in fantasy and the need to have all this knowledge and to follow it, etc. But one of the key drivers, is, is that people love fantasy's ability to sort of give you more time and quality time with friends and family and with football as a sort of pastime that you love. So that kind of tension and duality, we immediately honed in on and created this sort of this kind of strategic platform, which the sort of key insight was that, fantasy football isn't actually about strengthening your football knowledge, it's about strengthening your relationships. So we sort of like, twisted that as, like, it doesn't really matter. You don't need to go spend all this time and, like, worry and be an expert. You know, it's just go have fun and play and spend time and trash talk and have fun with your with your friends and coworkers and family. And we created a campaign directly off of that in 2019.
Jake Bayham (00:04:03) - But it went very well. We've had we had success, and it's actually just kind of snowballed. And it were five years later and that sort of overarching strategic platform as underpinned all of the different, campaigns that we've created. The line there only in fantasy is really sort of almost like this, misdirect in a way, and that it's like, you know, only a fantasy seems like it would be fantastical things, but it's actually only in fantasy that life almost gets realer, that your relationships get realer and better, that you go from, you know, I think like one of the key things that we had talked about in kind of crafting this is you can go from like being on just a very tight and first name basis with your boss. Suddenly you joined a fantasy league, and the next thing you know, you have nicknames for each other and your trash-talking. So the relationship goes from sort of like this phony, stuffy thing to this really real and and tight and less formal relationship, if you will.
Jake Bayham (00:05:02) - So it's really like only in fantasy do things actually get real in a way. And so every campaign since in the has been a sort of different micro insight about your relationships within fantasy football and bringing those to life in different ways. I know we're going to get into this specific years later, so I won't get into it now, but that's kind of the history.
Camden Bernatz (00:05:23) - Fantastic intro or set up to the rest of the conversation. Because if nothing else, I feel like one of the main takeaways any listener who's trying to get better at the craft can take from this is the importance of that key insight, like what you identified as like, here's the main thing that kind of keeps people from joining, but here's the main driver of it and here's the the insight is like like what you just said. Like in fantasy life kind of gets more friendships get more real. And fantasy football, of course. And so that that insight could I could see just tons of different creative briefs coming off of that and campaign ideas.
Camden Bernatz (00:05:54) - And so without that clear insight, you're kind of just shooting in the dark, but that is actionable. That is good. And clearly you obviously did execute on it. But I just want to give a little shout-out to the importance of finding that early and how powerful that is.
Jake Bayham (00:06:08) - Appreciate that. And I think it's probably worth saying one thing I failed to mention is just being the number one platform with huge adoption amongst core fans, we were looking to expand and target more casual fans, so it also felt okay to sort of be like, you don't have to be an expert, right? Because we weren't we weren't talking to the core fan. So that's kind of a key part of it that I failed to mention.
Camden Bernatz (00:06:30) - Anecdotally, I know of some people who are not aren't really big heavy watchers of the NFL, but then they'll join a league for fun, a fantasy football league, and all of a sudden now they're invested in watching the games to see, you know, who's going to who's going to win that week and stuff like that.
Camden Bernatz (00:06:43) - And so it's it is something that it gives you more of a reason to engage in the game itself, see whether or not that's your main drive. But yeah, I it's all connected and I've definitely seen that that happening: the social aspect.
Sinan Dagli (00:06:54) - That's right. And one little thing that as Jake's talking about, you talked about the sort of having a strong platform as sort of a strong jumping-off point for these new campaigns because sometimes it's difficult. Right? Like every year. What are you going to do? But when you have a strong campaign platform like that and a strategic platform, it only like we have so many ideas that come coming out of it because we have the truth. The truth is there and everyone can point at that thing and we're like, okay, yeah, that's it. That's the thing that we're always chasing. And that makes the creative just sort of the job is so much easier because of it, you know.
Camden Bernatz (00:07:36) - Well, yeah. And it helps you evaluate those ideas. Right.
Camden Bernatz (00:07:38) - You might have lots of different ideas that are good or strong in different reasons. But being able to tie back to that insight is that insight coming through. Is that reflected? We are we are, we build upon that helps. You know, if it's if it's the best idea versus, oh, that's interesting, but not quite on brand. And so I want to do I want to most of the conversation I want to focus specifically on this campaign. That's the nature of what our show's about. But I do want to ask a little bit process to kind of learn from your experience with you being head of strategy, Jake and and Sinan being executive creative director with your agency and your team. How does that transition from strategy to creative go? Like how much are you? And again, this wasn't a fresh campaign this year. It was kind of a new take on it at a campaign that's been continuing. How much did in the strategy portion do you hand off kind of the or guide what creative needs to accomplish versus just give them an insight and creative team decides to build upon that? It's my question to make sense I.
Jake Bayham (00:08:35) - Think so I mean, we're we're a small, lean agency, and Sinan and I have worked together for years and are pretty tight. So, I think we almost see each other as partners and super collaborative. I and I leaned creative in my strategy. So I think I'm already pushing into creativity, I think in in the strategies. But I'm also not just revealing it. I'm working with and on and team to craft the strategies anyway, so there's just not a lot of like we do this and then you do that. Gotcha. It's sort of all built together in a way, and that's just the nature of sort of being a small indie, I think.
Sinan Dagli (00:09:16) - and the other thing about it is also when you have established a strong work relationship and this is not just Jake and I write the part of the the other team members, like Robyn Tenenbaum, who's the creative director, we can call each other out and say, like, I don't know about this, or is this poking holes in wherever we can early and often so that when you baton pass almost from one department to another and make it feel like that's not my job anymore.
Sinan Dagli (00:09:51) - The problems that will come up, they come up too late. Sometimes when you get into that, the conversations because like we are in rooms virtual, but we are in rooms constantly talking about it, about that conversation doesn't stop. And it's not this sort of like, okay, now that this first review is over, I'm over it. We're going to move on to the other projects, like we are absolutely always talking about and pulling Jake into script conversations, conversations and concepts, lines, etc.. So that kind of, you know, I guess the mental barriers are not really especially for this don't exist for us.
Camden Bernatz (00:10:36) - That's very interesting. The reason I kind of asked that question is I've been I've been thinking about that a little bit because our agency, we are relatively small. And so we actually don't have a fully staffed out like strategy department that is separate from a creative. It's kind of pushed together. So I'm a I'm a creative director, but I'm often working initially with strategy or to put together a strategy with a client.
Camden Bernatz (00:10:59) - And then I work with different members of my creative team to execute on that. And I think there's pros and cons to having it separate. And I don't mean separate like they work separately, but having dedicated strategists and not having them. And so I just been kind of thinking about that and how what you just said makes sense a lot, where it's a nice when you have a full force of people who can be dedicated to it as far as, as lifting the initial load, but it should not be separate. It's not just and, okay, my part's done now go and make it work. Otherwise you're going to, like you said, things that are either holes or issues in it or things you might be second guess they come up a little bit too late. So I like I like what you just laid out. That makes sense to me. But yeah, that's kind of where my thought was that thinking about that process is there are some I know we're not. My my agency is not unique in that there are some people who don't have necessarily dedicated strategy apart from creative.
Camden Bernatz (00:11:49) - But yeah, it's all I have to say about that, I guess. Okay, interesting. So let's get more into the details of this specific campaign. So my understanding reading about this campaign beforehand is you guys, in the strategy phase, you you interviewed a fantasy league. I think it was for 49 years running. Now this fantasy league has been happening. My questions are I have a lot of them, but I guess first, how did you find them and how'd that conversation go? Like, how did how did that come to be and what you take from that?
Sinan Dagli (00:12:18) - I think the one of the the incredible thing about, our jobs is that you get to do things like this. I don't I can't even imagine other sort of professions where you have these variety of the things that you have to accomplish during the day, one of which is talking to a 49 year old fantasy league founder, Which is remarkable with the way we got in touch with them or even learned about them was research. so throughout this campaign, we did social listening.
Sinan Dagli (00:12:53) - We hired a, actual journalist, like a story producer, as well as our own producers doing research and creative team as well. So we found this, this group of people who have been playing fantasy for 49 years. And we just sent them a note, like, just cold, call effectively. And they responded. And and then long story short, our producer got on the phone with them and then effectively pitch the thought, this is what we're trying to do. and that we were intrigued and effectively impressed. Like, what an incredible thing that they've been doing. So if they would be interested in, if we could actually tell their story. And then they were very, also intrigued. So we, you know, the whole team got on the call with all the founders of this fantasy team, and they told us all about their story. They were sending their lineups via mail. yeah.
Camden Bernatz (00:13:53) - Before you could get on an app or something. This is back in the 70s. Yeah.
Sinan Dagli (00:13:57) - Absolute pioneers.
Sinan Dagli (00:13:58) - I mean, when you think about it, they they were they were doing some stuff that no one was, no one else was doing. So. And then based on that conversation that kind of inspired the scripts for us, and the things that we wanted to tell the world about them. And they're incredibly excited to see the campaign. They're loving it. And maybe you'll hear it first. Then, they that ESPN actually invited them to Bristol, their headquarters, to do their 50, year anniversary draft. So they're going to do it at the ESPN next year.
Camden Bernatz (00:14:34) - That's awesome. Something 49 years ago had no thoughts about that kind of stuff happening? Probably. But the consistency gets you somewhere. That's awesome. Yeah.
Sinan Dagli (00:14:44) - And shout out to the, the clients for also doing that for them with this special thing. Yeah.
Camden Bernatz (00:14:49) - So I believe one of the kind of the, the main video with this campaign is kind of a celebration of that group. Right? I'm sure the actors in there, these are your younger people.
Camden Bernatz (00:14:59) - It's kind of just kind of a flashback. It's not actually the people from that group. But there's this they're video people who are having the draft of 1979 in their garage. And that's kind of a reflection of them. Right?
Sinan Dagli (00:15:10) - That's exactly it. And they they showed us and sent us photos of like how they did it. It's similar I mean, obviously incredibly analog. Everything written down. Yeah. And they were also some of them were not they were not in the same place every time. So the funny thing is when you look at this is now getting into such depth about the stuff that they've done, but they were like, when you think about the local market. Let's say we're in the Bay. So I'm a 40 Niners fan at back in the day in the 70s, you know, let's say 40 Niners beat the Ravens. And then they look at the stats. Sometimes the local market would pat the stats a little bit for a player, which then changes the the point. So then they started having to figure out like okay, whose market's stats that we're going to have to rely on to actually get the point system, which is pretty hilarious.
Sinan Dagli (00:16:11) - But that's like part of the pioneering things that they were doing, which is, again, like another sort of hats off moment for them, like just, you know, and then they stuck together for, for all these years. Imagine that. Which is the point of the, the strategy and the concept.
Camden Bernatz (00:16:27) - Yeah, it's a celebration of tradition. And, so kind of the one of the format that's consistent through these videos is you'll have and again, if you're listening, you gotta go check these out. But the format is each has the video what's happening and then it's got the football is fantasy the little fantasy logo. And then something else that's being compared is real. So for example, the football is fantasy. The lifelong friendships are real. That's kind of the sign off that's consistent for each of these. And so when how did that, that formatting of that line to kind of be again, the the campaign is kind of the only fantasy. It's a continuation of that. But that's kind of the line for this iteration.
Camden Bernatz (00:17:06) - Football is fantasy. The blank is real. How did that come about?
Jake Bayham (00:17:11) - I think it was just that tension I was saying in the beginning. Right. Like you think fantasy is fake, it's easy to just be like, oh, these are fake teams. You're a fake league manager. It's fake. It's fantasy. But it's actually, you know, it's the reality of of the relationships, and the bonds that are created and the, the punishments and the the wins and the losses, like, those are all real. Right? So we were just playing with that tension and just giving. bringing it to life a little more than the than just the line itself. Only in fantasy to help kind of, add a little texture or meat to it.
Sinan Dagli (00:17:45) - And a lot of the credit obviously goes to Jake and his his strategy there, because that is, you know, sort of using that as a jumping off point. But then also to Robin Tenenbaum and Lauren Byers and Justin Cannon, the creatives who worked on this when we pitched this idea to to ESPN.
Sinan Dagli (00:18:05) - And you can imagine we've been, you know, partners for since 2019. So we're close with them as well. so, you know, we're talking about the sort of barriers between departments, but we also have that kind of relationship with the, our, ESPN clients. The pitch was, okay, what if it was, you know, we're thinking about telling these stories. So football is fantasy. The stories are real. That was the the pitch for us. Like one slide. That's it. And it draws you in so much. It's like the sort of bait, almost like, oh, I want to see the stories now because I this is like what makes the, this entire universe of fantasy football very intriguing for everyone. So to Jake's point then, you know, you look at social anecdotally being on social, there are like all these thousands of incredible stories about traditions, last place, punishments and draft orders, etc. trades, and one of which was actually one of our, the team members.
Sinan Dagli (00:19:08) - They have a last place tattoo on their shin. so when we're talking about we're like living and breathing the sport like we are in it ourselves. So none of this is like we have a gut feeling. We know anecdotally this world so much. so that also helps, right? You got to be in the know, so to speak.
Camden Bernatz (00:19:30) - And it comes through as authentic. This this is clearly not put together by someone who's like, oh yeah, I think I kind of understand this crowd. Let me artificially try to kind of speak to them. This is like, okay. Yeah, yeah, this is I, I see myself in the video or I see my buddy who's really into this in the video, or I see, you know, what stories I've heard in this video. I want to be a part of that. Whatever you are on the spectrum, if you haven't done fantasy football yet or you're a hardcore, you know, 49 years and counting participant, this resonates and that this is the kind of work that I, I'm guessing you guys up on this episodes, but like it's it's it makes me excited to do this kind of work because not every project calls for it.
Camden Bernatz (00:20:08) - Right. Sometimes you need to do a promotion about a buy one, get one, or sometimes you need to do a I don't know. Everything lends itself as well as this one, but this is like, to me, the perfect execution of strategic insight, creative execution on it, knowing the audience, speaking their language and capturing something that resonates with people like it's I can't imagine a detractor from this. Anybody who would react to this and say, oh yeah, that didn't hit the mark or something like that. This is awesome.
Jake Bayham (00:20:34) - Thank you, thank you. Sinan does love a good Bogo, though.
Camden Bernatz (00:20:36) - Those are good too. Those are good too. And you can get creative with those as well. But well, and the fact that this is something that also again, I'm not trying to say it was easy. I'm sure this took lots of effort, but what's nice in your situation too, is you have this passionate audience that you're representing. It wasn't like you were trying to create fantasy football from the ground up and be like, so like it's kind of like playing football, but not really.
Camden Bernatz (00:20:56) - You don't actually draw people. But it was like, there's this awesome thing happening and you tapped into it and represented it in a way that that was authentic and true. And so that's that's nice to have such a I guess that's that shows the value of brand building and, you know, experience building besides trying to before you try to do any ad and stuff like that, is having having an experience like fantasy football to draw on and to to highlight and feature. ESPN is in a great spot in that sense. I'm just thinking out loud here if there's any question. But I'll get back to asking you some questions here. but. So yeah there's like I look at the videos, there's the one that features the the group from back in the in 79, how they've been doing it till now. There's a couple about like the punishment or ones about the where the guy has to. You can't eat at the adult table. He has to eat at the little kid table because he came in last. And then there's people trying to like there's different games and or challenges people go through to try to get their draft order right.
Camden Bernatz (00:21:52) - And so there's one of the people eating these super hot wings and things like that. And because they're committed to to to win and they're dedicated. So I'm curious about the actual making of these videos. when it came to like these are like, you know, people's garages, a house, living room thing, scoping, casting. What was that process like? Was there any challenges with that, or was it all pretty smooth? And how did that go down?
Sinan Dagli (00:22:14) - Well, our, and I will also give flowers to our producer, Cade Wallace. And when we are looking at each production with, with each campaign, Our goal is to make like the most efficient way of looking at that budget and how we can actually slice and dice and get the most content out of it at the highest quality possible. And we actually ended up shooting in Portland, which is slowly becoming a kind of a budget friendly production hub alongside Vancouver, Austin, Eastern Europe, etc. and kind of coincidentally, Kade, who's a producer? Robin.
Sinan Dagli (00:23:00) - they're both, Portland native and Portland, residents, actually not native, but they're residents. So when we were looking at, some of the, you know, production companies and directors, we found Mike Eagan. He's also from Portland and works with the production company, out of Portland called reverie. So we looked at it as like, okay, this is a very efficient way of using the budget, finding sort of these local, makers, across the board. And when we are looking at these so you'll, you're seeing multiple obviously you have the basement, you have the garage, there's that kind of living room, dining room type of environment. It's all in one location. And that's how you get the highest level of efficiency. If we can find a single location that we can slice and dice, and using art department, which another shout out goes to the art department, the lead, who actually, worked on Portlandia and Barry and that gets us the, the highest level in the best way of sort of slicing our budget.
Sinan Dagli (00:24:12) - Then you don't have to do a company move. You don't have to move from one location to the other another that which is, you know, hours spent and wasted. And that's how we looked at it, which worked out for us. We found a very nice house in Portland, and we sort of looked at as like, okay, this particular story can take place here, the garage, the living room, etc. which which helps. Another one is we actually cast it in LA and Portland at the same time. So for us, it's very important to find the right fit for each role. because we're writing these scripts and they're all depicting a league. So we want to make sure not only it comes off as authentic, but also, you get the best, actors, for those roles. So we actually flew some people from LA, found some, improv actors from Portland as well, which was a nice mix of, characters.
Camden Bernatz (00:25:17) - So how much do you. And in case you can't tell, I'm really this.
Camden Bernatz (00:25:20) - This podcast really is about getting into the craft. So I'm getting into the details here a little bit, but how much in advance you said you worked with like a production partner? how much in advance did you say, like, here's our shot list we want to get versus here's kind of the scenario. We want to have a guy who can't eat at the eat at the adult table, and they kind of decide, here's the angle, here's how we're going to set them up. How much how did that back and forth go as far as specifically specifying what the actual shot was going to look like.
Sinan Dagli (00:25:47) - So it's it's also a little tricky, right? Because we have these stories, we need to find these stories first and then find the people interview as well as get the story rights to to be to come out and do these. Right. So and it's a chicken egg situation because we have to start the production process, the preproduction process earlier, then we actually have everything locked in. So and the director has to sort of a little bit of a this is how I would approach this, without really like actually bidding against these specific fully written up scripts because we can't guarantee, like, what if someone drops off? What if they say no? So that was a little bit of a again, it's not nervous, but it is.
Sinan Dagli (00:26:37) - You know, up until the last second, we had to make some changes and adjustments. And then once we lock the the scripts in, we were able to, obviously talk about this is, you know, the shot list and and Mike, Mike Egan, did a great job with looking at it and getting the best out of, you know, the location that we had. So I think the the interesting bit of this because the rest of it is probably pretty standard, but it was the sort of chicken egg situation because you kind of had to pretend to be like coming up with ideas for these scripts that may or may not go through.
Camden Bernatz (00:27:17) - Yeah. Yeah, that's I mean, that's the nature of what we do right? Like it's things live in your head, but then bring it into fruition. There's a lot of different moving parts that sometimes you kind of just got to cross your fingers a little bit. Yeah.
Sinan Dagli (00:27:30) - part of the fun.
Camden Bernatz (00:27:31) - Yeah. We're the hot wigs, actually, hot that they were eating in that video.
Camden Bernatz (00:27:37) - that girl's got, like, tears in her eyes, and I don't know if she's just really, like, the improv actor or if they were actually struggling at all.
Sinan Dagli (00:27:44) - No, they, actually, I guess this is, you know, we got to unveil some interesting things to people. Actually want to watch this as we're talking. So I'll, I'll, in the casting, the audition, that particular actress actually did cry in her casting call. And we're like, this is incredible. and on set, we did, use what they call a cry stick, which is. Yeah, kind of a, I don't know what kind of camera. It's not chemicals. It's just sort of naturally made. But it is. It probably amplifies or, pushes you to, to have watery eyes a little bit. so that's we use the cry stick for, for that that solely.
Camden Bernatz (00:28:32) - Yeah. That that little touch made it like that. Were there any, like, stories, iterations, like whatever you want to call these examples that maybe didn't make the cut, but you kind of you still liked or were close to it as far as things that other leagues have done or you heard about.
Sinan Dagli (00:28:48) - The way we approached it was we have a very long excel sheet of stories and different statuses for the each story. Like, okay, this is like we contacted the people, we couldn't find them or some of them. We this is not the the entire campaign is not just these three spots. We are also doing a full social push and also, putting stuff on social as well. And then you have we're going to have other, like, maybe potentially live things. so the ones that did not make the these three spots are actually going to be, coming out in different, different formats on social, which, arguably one of the, the most important mediums for, for this. Right. Like when you think about the stories and the, the real things are really coming out of, social. I'm sure you know, the people who are, you know, seeing ESPN, Instagram and TikTok, like they're seeing a lot of, interesting stories like these, how people do draft orders, last place punishments, etc.
Camden Bernatz (00:29:59) - Yeah. Okay, cool. I'll stay tuned.
Jake Bayham (00:30:02) - It's I mean, it's not it's probably fair to say, like, there are obviously a lot of aggressive stories out there in the fantasy world, but we don't want to scare off, you know, casual fans, everyday people. We wanted it to feel, you know, a little bit more, you know, have a have a familial sense to it. plus, you know, ESPN is owned by Disney. So, I mean, you know, you know, how that was definitely a consideration is like, what what stories do we want to highlight and what are they conveying?
Camden Bernatz (00:30:31) - As a good point, I wasn't even thinking about that. But yeah, I there's some people at the extreme. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny. so this is me again. I did not do the research. I do not know the statistics, but just my anecdotal experience. Typically, the people that I know that are pretty in fantasy football tend to be, males.
Camden Bernatz (00:30:51) - There's quite a few females that are featured in each of these. Is that was that intentional to kind of show a wide breadth of like, hey, this isn't just for the guys? Or was that just kind of happenstance that it turned out that way?
Jake Bayham (00:31:01) - I don't yeah, I wouldn't say it's happenstance. I think, you know, one, we're very much aware of, you know, what's happening in women's sports, you know, it's just having a huge cultural moment and, you know, increased fandom and eyeballs on women's sports, but also more and more women are getting interested in in sports generally. Plus, we're going after that more casual fan. Right? So in doing so, we're going outside of those traditional sort of who you might think would be the the sort of core fantasy target who's already in the door. So for all those reasons, it's definitely a push for us. Great.
Sinan Dagli (00:31:42) - And the creative director, Robin, is possibly the the most obsessed fantasy football person I know in life.
Sinan Dagli (00:31:50) - So,
Camden Bernatz (00:31:51) - Nice.
Sinan Dagli (00:31:51) - She's a huge fan.
Camden Bernatz (00:31:52) - Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I think it was a great, great to do that. I'm glad. Glad to have seen that. I was just curious if there was like, I imagine there's probably some intentionality behind that and just wanted to to ask you, can you explain also kind of from a, from a strategy perspective, as far as rolling this stuff out and the timing, I know you've done it in years past, it wasn't totally like the first time you've done a campaign like this for ESPN, but either either was it ESPN's request or your strategic recommendation as your agency? When and how to run these things? Was all the placements and ad buys already decided and you just need to fill them? I'm obviously this this came out in July, I believe, and the season hasn't started, but people obviously do. They're they put the league together before the season starts. What what determined the timing of when these things would go out?
Jake Bayham (00:32:38) - Yeah. I think you know, generally ESPN has their sort of media plans and their media buys that that we are working with.
Jake Bayham (00:32:46) - we can always come with ideas that are on the top and, and they're willing to play depending on the, the concept. But generally we know we have a core group of assets that, that we need to create. And then in terms of timing, you know, we once once the season starts, our job is done. Like we can't get people in the door anymore. So the whole thing has to be front loaded, and get people excited. And of course, there's Olympics right now, but generally there's a lull, in, in sports, and you can feel fall coming. and that sort of itch and excitement for football, starts to brew. So I think it's all about capitalizing on that. and, and frontloading, as I said.
Sinan Dagli (00:33:32) - And we were just talking about at the beginning of the, the podcast, like, people are now making their plans to, to travel to, to get together for drafts. People are now like setting their time and draft, etc. I mean, it is sort of slow, like this exponential probably avalanche effect almost.
Sinan Dagli (00:33:52) - That is happening and seems like this is going to this podcast is going to come out right at the peak of it. and that is part of the reason of and then it's also when you think about the and we, I talked about it somewhere else in the past, but this is almost like the sort of like a beacon is lit that football is coming. there is a bit of that kind of you hear that you feel sort of disturbance in the force. You look at it's like, oh, it's coming like this sort of swell of excitement that this helps with. It is, when you think about it, is the ecosystem of football. and fantasy football is sort of the, you know, obviously you have the draft and all these other things that are coming out, but like fantasy football campaign, I feel like it's like the first signal that it's like it's coming.
Camden Bernatz (00:34:47) - I like that analogy of the beacon. Yeah. How fun. That's fun. And yeah, obviously, because you're buttoned up and and as far as the timing and stuff and a well-oiled machine by this point, as far as getting it out year after year.
Camden Bernatz (00:34:59) - I want to ask you again, Jake, one thing you mentioned, and I also read about in the AD Age article that talked about this campaign that you mentioned, the you identified through some research that one of the primary barriers for people getting involved is this sense of complexity. Like, I don't understand how it works. I don't know if I know enough about football, just kind of that being the barrier versus there's the you know, what you did highlight in this campaign is being the all the driving reason behind the tradition, the friendships, the experience that make people want to do it and stay. How did you guys make the decision? You could have focused on addressing the complexity and like trying to say, hey, look, it's not that complex. You could have focused on that, but instead you went this direction. What made you decide to lean toward the celebrating of what why they love it versus trying to address the barrier?
Jake Bayham (00:35:45) - Yeah, it's a good, good question. I, I will have a nuanced answer to it, but hopefully I'll make it clear.
Jake Bayham (00:35:52) - I think one, there's been multiple years, right? So we pull in different levers in different years. The first year I think it was it was 50/50, the tension and the setup. because it was like basically what it was was it was like one plus one equals. So essentially. So it was like friends plus football equal fantasy. So like it's that simple. You get your friends and you get the football that you love. That's fantasy. It's as easy as one plus one. Just just come. So it was like we had the friend bit, we had the relationship bit, but it was there was a simplicity in the in the device. Each year though, we come up with with new levers and I think one, I think just generally like the idea of the relationships we've found just really fruitful, overarching. And there's just like a ton of insight and, drama and and emotion in it. And, but I think that we also feel that just by saying the only part that matters is the relationship you are in without having to get into the negative.
Jake Bayham (00:36:51) - You are, in a way, deep positioning, the need to have to really like worry about becoming an expert. So I think like we're implicitly saying the tension or alleviating the tension, if you will. Does that make makes sense?
Camden Bernatz (00:37:05) - Yeah, it does make sense. And it's like, again, not that you're explicitly saying this, but it's like no matter how you get started, look how awesome it is to be a part of this. And whatever the barrier might be, it's worth it that people are more motivated if they show up and say, how do I do this? They're more motivated to get through the learning curve, whatever it might take, because they're getting toward this reward that you've put on display here, this, this experience. And so again, it's indirect. It's not the focus necessarily of this campaign. But that makes sense to me. And I like that. Instead of instead of suggesting the negative, oh, I hadn't thought that it'd be complicated. Now I feel a little bit nervous about that.
Camden Bernatz (00:37:39) - Like, you don't even have to address that. You just show why it's rewarding, right?
Sinan Dagli (00:37:44) - And another thing about is like the the tools that ESPN provides. And it used to be, I would say probably was very much more complex than 1979 when the those guys were doing it and they had to like make their own point system, etc. these readily available tools you have actually makes you a very good player out of the gate, in my opinion. And then obviously we talked about it. It has that sort of opens you up to wanting to watch more NFL, wanting to watch more football. It pulls you in. So you kind of like start like getting this sort of I am I have hunger for this. Now feed me more. Feed me. Yeah. and you know anecdotally like our like last year's agency champion was a rookie. oh. Wow. You know, we it's possible the complexity isn't that complex. Obviously. You know, there are different leagues who are going to be going to such depths, but you can.
Camden Bernatz (00:38:50) - Make it complex if you wanted to. Right. But it's not to get started.
Sinan Dagli (00:38:53) - It's up to you. There's a lever to it. and you can feel the good team with the tools you have available. But at the end of the day, like the trash talking, the sort of camaraderie that this brings. I don't know, like sometimes you don't. It doesn't matter.
Camden Bernatz (00:39:09) - Yeah. Just being. Yeah. If you're playing only because you want to win something, it's not as fun as just being part of something with your with you. Sometimes, sometimes the funnest, fondest memories come from losing right or being bad at it. Like, that can be fun too, right?
Sinan Dagli (00:39:21) - And if it was, if that were the case, like, you know, we we had close to 12 million signups last year, which was a all time record. It is not I mean, it is as general as it gets when you think about it. and we are trying to get more growth audience to sign up more.
Sinan Dagli (00:39:40) - And that's not going to like happen without really creating this FOMO. You know that this is like a place you should be part of for sure.
Jake Bayham (00:39:48) - Yeah. I mean, just like a little bit of richness or like anecdotally, but like I remember when I had, I had a couple kids under under two like in life probably like post Covid, everyone's under the same roof and like I had an old buddies league and then the work league was starting up. I was like, I can't do two leagues. It's like too much, right? But then like all of a sudden, like, you're not on that slack channel and like all of a sudden like the new employees, the new employees like have a nicknames with the other employees and like, they got inside jokes and like, you're like, you're out of the, the crew. And it's just like there's just a, there's just a truth there, you know, like, if you're not a part of it, you're, you know, you're missing out.
Camden Bernatz (00:40:30) - Good advertising rings true, right? And that's that's what this does. I like it a lot. Okay. Last, last question I have for each of you, if you I guess if you if you don't have anything to answer, that's fine. But I want to give you the opportunity. Any lessons or takeaways, like just thinking about how this whole thing has gone up to this point, any lessons or takeaways that others in the industry who might be listening can learn from this experience? Or any tips or tricks? Anything that you want to share that we maybe haven't addressed so far.
Jake Bayham (00:40:57) - I mean, I would say strategically, Like if you have a big enough truth or insight, like you can keep activating on it and it all kind of hangs together. But, in fresh new ways for years. and in a way, like, you don't always have to, you know, you don't always have to reinvent the wheel every, every year. You know, you want to find a unique way in and something that's topical or cultural or, you know, new, but, but you don't need to completely start from scratch.
Jake Bayham (00:41:25) - Like, if you have something powerful, you can keep building on that year over year.
Camden Bernatz (00:41:29) - Well said. Yeah.
Sinan Dagli (00:41:31) - I mean, I'll echo that. And it's that when you find that truth, then you when you dig it and you find it and sometimes it's, it's not as, as good, but you polish it and you sort of get it to a place where you like, okay, this is it. I mean, cherish it, right? Build on it. Celebrate it. That's what we're doing with this one. and I think deep inside, if you look at the best work, the the greatest things that we, we look at as, as an industry, it's it's all coming from that. They found a truth that you can then say like, okay. Yep, that's it. Because that speaks to people because otherwise it's just becomes ads. yeah. Can you find that that just sort of elevates your work into something that people like will want to watch or gravitate towards. So I guess that's the that doesn't happen always.
Sinan Dagli (00:42:32) - But when it happens, I think that should be celebrated for sure.
Camden Bernatz (00:42:35) - Yeah. So true. If you're constantly if you're trying to just put stuff out that changes people's minds or perspectives. I'm not saying that's not worthwhile, but that's harder to do if you can identify something that they already believe or resonate with or feel and tap into that and connected to something and then say, oh yeah, yeah, that truth. Yeah. So powerful. Great. Thank you both for your insight. and again, I've had on the on if you have, if you're just, forgetting the names here, we've got Jake Bayham and Sinan Dagli from, BSS and P, and, I appreciate both your time and for those who are interested in either following what you're up to or maybe getting in touch with you, what's the best way that they can go ahead and do that?
Jake Bayham (00:43:15) - We had a word documentary of our of some of the notes and things for this, and I think Sinan put mayhem, mayhem at Aol.com. But, that is not correct.
Jake Bayham (00:43:25) - but I got a good chuckle about that. yeah. I mean, reach out to us, via, you know, our website or our LinkedIn. sorry, I made a joke there. What the question was, how can you get in touch with us?
Camden Bernatz (00:43:40) - Yeah. touch with you or follow you, whatever you're up to. It was basically, I'm giving you the self-promotion platform here. What do you want to tell the people you know?
Jake Bayham (00:43:48) - Yeah. I mean, I think, yeah, our primary channels are our website or our LinkedIn's. We, you know, we have a heavy hand in BSSP's, LinkedIn presence and social presence generally. So again, we're we're a small shop. So, that you reach out to us and that'll most likely be us behind the behind there.
Camden Bernatz (00:44:07) - Nice.
Sinan Dagli (00:44:09) - Yeah. Smash the subscribe button, y'all.
Camden Bernatz (00:44:12) - Yep. For sure. Yeah. Same goes for the podcast if anybody has not subscribed yet but you're still here come on. Subscribe. We really appreciate it. We'll have a five star review.
Camden Bernatz (00:44:21) - But yeah, it's been a great episode, great conversation. looking forward to more. Good luck for everyone who's either playing fantasy football or watching the football. Just as a fan. I'm a Chicago Bears fan, so it's been it's been a rough few years, but we'll see. We'll see if the bears can can figure it out eventually.
Camden Bernatz (00:44:38) - So on that, on that somber note, thanks for tuning in today, and see you next time on Brands and Campaigns.
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