AT&T
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As an official U.S. Olympic Team (Team USA) sponsor, AT&T negotiated in-broadcast, 40-second primetime features on each of the 15 core nights of the 2008 Summer Olympic telecast. This opportunity provided a great vehicle for AT&T to connect with Olympic viewers but also presented many sizeable challenges for the Brand:
- AT&T’s 18-24 year-old core audience is younger than the traditional Olympic viewer – creating the need to build a multi-faceted program to extend beyond Olympic coverage, draw in younger consumers and inspire them to take action
- AT&T’s competition included every major Olympic sponsor fighting for attention during two weeks of coverage.
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The program needed to seamlessly integrate into the environment and tonality of Olympic programming in order to receive the critical endorsement of both NBC and Team USA.
- AT&T would be judged by the public not just on program benefits, but on how well AT&T helped Team USA achieve its goals.
Promotion Objectives:
- Create awareness of AT&T’s sponsorship of Team USA –within and beyond traditional Olympic coverage.
- Drive consumer engagement with AT&T products and services by generating the set target of music downloads (online or mobile phones)
- Make a sizable donation to Team USA through consumer participation.
Execution:
Partnering with Team USA and NBC, AT&T launched the AT&T Team USA Soundtrack – featuring “never-before-heard” tracks from 16 of the nation’s hottest artists including 3 Doors Down, Chris Brown, Goo Goo Dolls, Sheryl Crow and Taylor Swift.
- New Music - One new song from the AT&T soundtrack was highlighted each night during primetime coverage (on NBC and Telemundo) accompanied by a video montage of the day’s key moments for Team USA.
- AT&T Downloads - At the end of each in-broadcast feature, consumers were driven to download the songs, ringtones and answer tones through AT&T products and services. All proceeds went to support Team USA.
- Music Videos - Full-length feature music videos featured U.S. Olympic athletes and were made available through AT&T’s Olympic website, WAP site (mobile), U-verse (IPTV) and in AT&T retail stores.
- Primetime Coverage - AT&T worked with NBC to arrange the world premiere of the music video “The Champion in Me” (3 Doors Down) to appear during America’s Got Talent and coordinate an appearance by Sheryl Crow on the Today Show the Friday prior to the Games.
- Media Blitz - By providing exclusive “behind-the-scenes” content of artists and athletes, the story was spread through top print and broadcast media outlets and became a hot DJ chatter item.
- Viral - Consumers helped spread the word by uploading music videos to YouTube and discussing the program in blogs, Facebook and MySpace.
- Donation Announcement - A final media tour with Michael Phelps and Norman Bellingham (U.S. Olympic Committee COO) announced a $1 million donation to Team USA through consumer downloads of the AT&T Team USA soundtrack.