All roads lead to Capital One #RoadtoOne
For the past 14 years, Capital One has been an official sponsor of the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament. This year, they pulled out all the stops for their #RoadToOne campaign with a new anthem That’s What March Is For (I know that’ll be stuck in my head for a while) and a series of ads: The Chuck Blimp, Magic Mart, What About Nantz featuring celebrities and athletes like Charles Barkley, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Garner, Dionne Warwick, Jim Nantz, and Spike Lee.
Capital One: March Madness
Every year the March Madness tournament is a media frenzy and since I moved to New York just this year, I got to see for myself the hype associated with college basketball and sports in general in the US (spoiler alert: it’s big). It’s interesting to see the continuity of Capital One’s March Madness commercials with recurring appearances from Jackson, Barkley, and Spike Lee — but this year they had to take it to the next level if they hope to standout and break through the social media noise.
“Every year our goal is to raise the bar and ensure that we are adding to the fan viewing experience. We see this work as an extension of the entertainment and excitement of the games, and that’s why fans look forward to it.” — Ryan Carroll, GSD&M Group Creative Director (Capital One’s ad agency)
Their integrated campaign ran across channels like TV, social, digital and OOH such as on-site activations and signs in the arena where the games take place. The brand has even expanded to TikTok-first merch sweepstakes. Most notably, Capital One introduced three new social media platforms to their campaign: Snapchat, Giphy, and Periscope — this is where fans can interact with the brand and create their own content.
It’s all in the Execution
Capital One shoots and scores! They employed several key strategies have helped them achieve their objectives of enhancing brand visibility and engaging with a diverse audience:
- Celebrity Endorsements: Their content featured well-known celebrities and star athletes to help create interesting and memorable content that fans would want to watch.
- Cross-Channel Promotion: Capital One took on a comprehensive approach that tied their TV, social media, and OOH advertising together to ensure they have a unified #RoadToOne message and broad reach across channels.
- TikTok Sweepstakes: Capital One hosted a TikTok-first merchandise sweepstakes, which helped them tap into the younger demographic and create even more buzz (we all love freebies!).
Worth the Journey
All their efforts paid off as they were able to drive one of the greatest impact and engagement through seamless cross-channel promotions among social media and TV spots and meet all their objectives of the “March Madness” campaign:
- Increase Brand Awareness: Elevate Capital One’s position in the minds of sports fans and new potential customers.
- Enhance Engagement: Strengthen relationships with existing customers as well as increase engagement in Capital One’s website, especially through their NCAA March Madness Bracket Challenge, encouraging new sign-ups from sports fans.
- Drive Sign-Ups: Encourage new applications and sign-ups for Credit One credit cards and associating the brand with being part of an exciting community.
As marketers we can take this as a lesson to not take the road less traveled, but to take all the roads and leverage your digital marketing tools to combine engaging content and strategic celebrity endorsements with a comprehensive cross-channel approach to cut through the competitive noise and lead the audience to where you want them to go.
