• by Karl Greenberg , March 13, 2009

The National Basketball Association is launching a new campaign promoting the playoffs, which start April 18, and the finals--which begin in June--with the theme "Where Will Amazing Happen This Year?"

The campaign--which debuts this week--features ads developed through a collaboration involving the NBA, creative agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, and NBA broadcast partners TNT, ESPN, ABC, and NBA TV.

It is also the first professional-sports ad campaign running simultaneously on the four networks.

The effort comprises dozens of spots that extend the NBA's "Where Amazing Happens" campaign, which launched in the 2007-08 season to highlight big moments in the NBA playoffs and finals. The "Amazing" effort superseded a 2006-07 playoffs campaign with an "Unbelievable" theme that featured illusionist David Blaine.

The new ads show courtside footage in black and white, intended to evoke the emotional intensity of dramatic moments in playoffs.

The spots that run before the conference finals will feature current players like LeBron James, Baron Davis, Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce, Manu Ginobili and Dwyane Wade. During the playoffs and into the finals, spots will incorporate historic moments with NBA legends, including Magic Johnson and Dr. J.

Daniel Meiseles, senior vice president and executive producer, production, programming, and broadcasting at the NBA, says the campaign is the first in which the association is working with all TV partners to come up with one integrated campaign.

He says the effort comprises 22 playoff-moments, with two added for the conference finals and two more for the finals. "If you add the 'topicals' and 'tune-ins,' we could have over 50," he adds.

The ads will also run online. "We have a very big digital marketing plan that includes NBA.com, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Hulu and other third-party sites," he says. Meiseles adds that the association is working with marketing partners on a digital strategy, including a "widget"--a Web ad that users can extract from a site and pass around virally--in which fans can pick Top 5 NBA playoff moments to share with friends.

"Our viewership increases the deeper into the playoffs we get," he says. "There's a lot of buzz right now for the NBA; viewership is up over 20%, and our ratings on ABC are up 12%. We expect the same during playoffs and finals."