• by Karl Greenberg , October 19, 2009

 

The National Basketball Association (NBA) says it airs hundreds of Spanish-language live-game radio broadcasts each season in 10 team cities, has six U.S.-born Latino players and 19 players from Spain and Latin America on the 2009-10 preseason rosters, and has played 25 preseason games and one regular-season game in Latin America.

Now the League is reaching out to Hispanic consumers, who constitute 15% of the League's fan base, by launching a multiplatform campaign called Ene•bé•a (en-nay-bay-ah, Spanish-language phonetic for "NBA.") The effort is intended to grow the League's Hispanic fan base includes media, events, grassroots and merchandising programs.

Saskia Sorrosa, senior director, U.S. Hispanic marketing at the NBA, says the League has been actively targeting the Hispanic market since 2000. "We have been using in-language assets for several years, including game broadcasts. What we are doing this year is bringing it all under a new brand umbrella," she tells Marketing Daily. She adds that the effort includes media buys for the first time on networks like Telemundo, Univision, and ESPN Desportes, Fox Sports and MTV's Spanish language channels. "It's the first time we have spots that will live outside our existing assets."

Sorrosa says the effort comprises four different TV spots that will run throughout the season on TV and radio in Spanish and English. "Latin Americans have growth up with basketball, and it is [NBA commissioner] David Stern's vision to globalize the sport beyond U.S. borders. So we have had NBA programming in Latin American countries for years."

Via Bromley Communications, it includes television, radio and online advertising, a Web site, special events, grassroots programs and consumer products. The national Ene•bé•a television creative launches this week in both English- and Spanish-language television. Online assets include a Spanish-language Web site, NBA.com/enebea. The site will have Webisodes featuring Latino NBA players, the latest news, photo galleries, and other offerings. It includes in-arena promotions and special events for Hispanic fans.

The League will also sell Ene•bé•a-branded T-shirts and other related consumer products at the NBA Store on Fifth Avenue, select team arena stores, and online at NBAstore.com.

Separately, Adidas and Pepperidge Farm are launching marketing programs with the NBA this season. The former is launching a TV, Web and promotional campaign called "It's On Me for My Brotherhood" that cross-promotes the 2009-10 NBA season. The effort, via 180 Los Angeles, focuses on NBA players Dwight Howard and Derrick Rose with six Web films at Addidasbasketball.com.

The effort has interviews with each and behind-the-scenes footage from various Adidas events. The campaign includes an NBA All-Star promotion co-sponsored by the NBA and EA Sports wherein participants can vie to win an "Ultimate NBA Experience" and a trip to the 2010 NBA All-Star game in Dallas. A third component of the program partners Adidas with Eastbay.com such content as an online chat on Oct. 28

A TV spot featuring NBA stars Derrick Rose, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, Chauncey Billups, Tim Duncan, Tracy McGrady and Josh Smith. Print ads and the company will run retail programs around the world to support the program.

Pepperidge Farm is touting its Goldfish brand with a program around Dwyane Wade, called Team Xtreme program, which encourages America's youth to get some exercise.

The effort is at GoldfishFun.com/team_xtreme_park, where site visitors enter a sweepstakes to win one of six all-expenses-paid trips for four to NBA All-Star 2010 in Dallas. The site lets kids track their active play time for additional opportunities to win the trip.

The program will be supported with a 30-second television ad featuring the goldfish character and Wade on Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and the Disney channel throughout the month of November. The November issue of Sports Illustrated for Kids will be wrapped with an Xtreme and Wade advertisement about Team Xtreme.