In July 2020, Foot Locker’s House of Hoops sub-brand debuted a short form video to welcome back the NBA and build affinity with hoops fans.
Territory: USA
Agency: Laundry Service
Other organisations: Cycle (production)
Objectives
As the NBA went into a pandemic-driven hiatus in March 2020, Foot Locker’s marketing team immediately began preparing to celebrate its return, whenever that might happen.
Choosing to focus on its basketball-specific sub-brand ‘House Of Hoops’, the brief to agency Laundry Service was to create a piece of content which would ‘exemplify the ups and downs that basketball fans everywhere had gone through while the game was on pause’.
The objective was to create an ‘engaging and emotional’, ‘simple and soulful’ spot that would drive engagement and build affinity between the brand and hoops fans, which would be measured by view and share rates.
Activation
The agency team working on the project noted that rims and nets on public basketball courts across the US were removed by authorities who wanted to prevent social mixing amid Covid-19. The team was also inspired by the insight that ‘when you truly live the game of basketball, it’s in how you move, your walk, the music you listen to’ and that those who consider themselves active participants in basketball culture lost a part of themselves when the sport was shut down.
The resulting spot, ‘Thank You Basketball’, was essentially a love letter to the game. The details, imagery and message were deliberately kept simple. Shot in Dyckman Park, a public basketball mecca in New York City, the film featured a parks worker reinstalling the rim and paints a picture of a fan who’ll never take the game for granted again.
The final product/logo shot sought to establish House of Hoops as the basketball retailer that truly understands the importance of the game at grassroots level.
The ad was released across television and online channels in July 2020 as rims returned to parks and the NBA announced that the season would resume in an innovative bubble arena.
Outcome
According to the agency, the campaign generated results beyond its original benchmark targets with the video garnering a 49.97 per cent view rate organically, around 1,000 organic shares and more than 1,000 shares from paid ads. The ad generated more than 23,000 Instagram views.