Bigfoot Hoops
Nurturing young basketball players into men, future NCAA and NBA stars
Youth basketball tournaments attract nation’s top talent
Problem
Youth basketball events, associations, camps and tournaments have been riddled with obstacles and negative stigmas over the past 20 years. Unfortunately, shysters and con-men care far more about lining their pockets than nurturing young talented athletes.
Challenges
Bigfoot Hoops founder and President Hal Pastner is a living legend within the youth basketball event-management community. Since its inception, his organization required a brand stage to present the quality and power of its national events. Considering the high number of star collegiate and NBA players that participated in the program at some point, working closely with sponsors such as eBay and Nike needed to be part of the overall methodology, providing the gateway to be acquired by a leader in the sports world. While recognizing that the U.S. youth sports economy was booming, the major question was to how best capitalize on the business model while rising to the top of this billion-dollar industry.
Solution
The team at OGK immediately recognized that the brand had to be slick, polished and resonate with young players. Since the client had developed close relationships with major publishers such as Slam Magazine, the OGK designers and copywriters worked to develop authentic language, taglines, elements and layouts that would play in that cultural space. Over time, interactive social media videos were created to build memorable marketing campaigns, leaving the viewer with an ESPN essence. By staying the course, Bigfoot Hoops was acquired by youth basketball leader Blue Star Sports.
Tournament Sub-Brands
We created a series of sub-brands to help each stop on the regional tour deliver its own unique experience. These branded tournaments immediately connected the improved cultivated identity and were installed as stand-alone events that fit within the master Bigfoot Hoops brand. This allowed the organization to increase sponsorship revenue and strategically connect with targeted audiences in geographic areas that had previously proven challenging.
2017 Tournament Season Promo
Each of the videos were produced with high energy, powerful audio tracks, recognizable voice-overs and fast edits. The strategy was to showcase the players while elevating the overall brand and increasing global awareness.
2017 Tournament Summer Season Promo
The strategy was to present the highlights of the Las Vegas tournament while showcasing strategic alliances such as Gatorade and Eastbay. Our team combined the talented players, popular tourist sites and pertinent tournament information with action and energy to deliver an impactful video experience.
2016 Tournament Summer Season Promo
Our team needed a lively, spirited video to showcase the number of players and teams competing in the five-day tournament. We were able to cast celebrity voice-over talent to generate heightened buzz and improve ticket sales.
Play Big Campaign
Bigfoot Hoops has been synonymous with college and NBA basketball for many years. Here, the concept was to elevate the motion of the players while highlighting the sophistication of the organization’s management and administration.
Website
As the Bigfoot Hoops brand matured, so did the need to match the overall look, user experience and flow of the website. There were key components to ensure the user could easily navigate throughout the content. This included scheduling, past event highlights, gear and strategic corporate sponsors. The videos on the site needed to demonstrate the massive size of the tournaments and the volume of the teams.
Responsive Website App
While many of the players, family members and first-time visitors are on the road traveling, Bigfoot Hoops recognized they needed a responsive environment to ensure access with available at all times. Instead of allocating large marketing dollars to produce a mobile app, we created a site that featured the same look and feel of an app. This produced similar results but saved the client a ton of cash!
Our strategy was to include strategically-positioned full-page ads in specific basketball-related publications. With consistency and ongoing media purchases — saturation — the Bigfoot Hoops logo was easily recognized due to the memorability factor. We did, however, incorporate slight design-element changes in different forums for a customized feel — similar to past Absolut Vodka print campaigns.
Social Media
Another key component to ensure the Bigfoot Hoops brand maintained its status amongst the participants was using Instagram and Facebook platforms. Our designers and producers worked closely with the client’s in-house marketing team to promote event calendars, future ticket sales, gym locators, tournament city promotions, individual team highlight reels, brand awareness and more. The year-over-year metrics tell a fascinating story of engagement through these popular social media channels.
Social Media Easter Promos
Our creative team produced a series of four short-form videos to ignite the tournaments, delivering incredible media attraction and community awareness for each stop. Other concepts, including college basketball players dressed in bunny costumes to promote the event, helped ensure the goals were achieved and the brand platform was elevated.
Social Media Easter Promos
Our video production team portrayed the hero character as a bit tight and nervous, as it is almost GO TIME. He begins to practice his techniques dressed in a bunny costume, of course. A social media campaign featured a series of cliffhangers that kept visitors and followers coming back to the sites throughout the tournament and into the future.
Social Media Easter Promos
As the story continues, the hero bunny is starting to get into his groove and is ready to exhibit his skills on the court. We are ready for the tip…let’s do this! At this point, we are measuring views and watching as shares dramatically increase and brand engagement continues to rise.
Social Media Easter Promos
What an amazing tournament! The hero bunny played his heart out! Before he continues on to the tour’s next stop, he deserves a carrot break and some relaxation.
Experiential Branding
Our team worked closely with location scouts and stadium management to ensure the visitor experience was implemented seamlessly. With every detail well-thought-out in advance and with each brand element in place, the event was a memorable experience for all who attended.
Digital Marketing
Part of our digital strategy was a hybrid of digital assets including targeted e-mail campaigns, animated banner ads, and full website-sponsored takeovers. To ensure proper engagement with our key audience, each strategy would be planned around specific dates and times.
Strategic Partnerships
We helped Bigfoot Hoops build strategic alliances with some of the biggest names in the sports industry. Through these partnerships, we were able to position Bigfoot in the marketplace as the most elite youth basketball tournament in the U.S. This perception helped lead to an acquisition in 2017.
Sneaker Design
OGK’s first sneaker production! Designing, manufacturing and marketing a customized sneaker is usually left for major companies such as Adidas and Puma. However, Bigfoot Hoops had built a very strong relationship with Nike, so the team at OGK decided it was wise to leverage it. We began sketching designs, sourcing materials, creating the perfect mold and developing Bigfoot models that fans and players would crave.
