Some rituals are comfortable daily patterns we perform between dawn and dusk.  Other rituals are infrequent, possible social events that we look forward to.  For many Americans the fall is football time and time for many rituals from the wave, to dumping Gatorade on the winning coach, to tailgating before the game.  Also, football is a ritual one can celebrate alone, with friends, and as a community.   From high school games on Friday, to college Saturday, to pro games on Sunday, we discuss the nuances of the game.  We celebrate the victories.  We commiserate the losses.  Win or lose we look forward to the next game, the next tailgate, the next ritual.

Earlier this week I received an email from Buffalo Wild Wings.  While the email was about a contest, my attention focused on the word “Tablegating”.   I like the concept.  Most fans tailgate at home games, and are left to find ways to socialize for away games.  Why not “Tablegate” at a nearby restaurant like Buffalo Wild Wings.

By hijacking tailgating with Tablegating BWW could build a ritual around the place to go when your team is out of town.  While Tablegating is a nice hook, the current idea or contest doesn’t fully take advantage of the tailgating ritual.  The Tablegating Challenge (by Coke Zero) is okay, but it is still only a contest.  In my perspective, a contest (or sweepstakes) is like frosting on a cake — if the cake does not taste good, the frosting will have little or no effect.

Buffalo Wild Wings should spend more time exploring the “Ultimate Tablegating Experience”.  The concept has potential, but it has to be more than reserving a table to watch the game with your buddies or a contest.  This experience has the potential of hijacking the tailgating ritual for away games.   To highjack a ritual, you need to take the essence of the ritual and make it yours.  For example:

• Team Spirit:  Normally the school or team colors fly everywhere.  Logos abound.  How can people add spirit to their table?  Can they bring in their team flags?  Or are there special flags one could adorn the table (similar to those afixed to car windows only bigger)?
• My Tailgate:  People get to the game early to secure “their spot”.  As with all rituals, many people have a preferred space to tailgate.  Some people tailgate at the same spot for years.  Is there a way to configure the restaurant to create unique areas?  Is there a way to configure the tables to create more socialization for larger groups?
• Tablegate Streaming:  The big game is a reason for friends from out of town to come in, however, I would doubt someone would commute for Tablegating.  So, what about merging the physical and virtual worlds through a screen at the table — allowing people at the restaurant to text back and forth with friends anywhere.
• League Smack:  Fantasy leagues abound, and one of the main activities is to talk trash.  Building on the previous streaming idea, what about combining the streaming fantasy league scoring with Tablegate streaming.
• Pre-Game Games:  Sure there is drinking, but there is also activities like bean bag toss, washer toss, or ladder golf.  Can one of these games be used/adapted or is there another game here.  Of course there is paper football, but thinking a little bigger — a little more special.
• Contest: Okay, now add a contest to bring it all together.

Buffalo Wild Wings has an opportunity to create a go to experience, a go to ritual, on game day.  This is a logical and emotive extension from their current marketing.  There are very few national restaurant chains that can own Tablegating (maybe Hooters).  So the true ultimate challenge is how to take a contest idea and transform it into a ritual.

And where there is passion there are marketers — all trying to capitalize on the heightened awareness, the passion, the fans.  Through watching many games and reading coverage online, I have seen the many commercials and banner ads (I must be nearing frequency levels in the triple digits with some ads).  As I analyzed which teams will make it to the Final Four, I also wondered which marketers are winning the advertising bracket.  As I reviewed the many ads, I grouped the  ads (television and online) into three different groups: basic exposure, contextual integration, and brand passion. 

Basic Exposure
Basic exposure is just running an ad as is.  No changes. A marketer will get the ratings — get the eyeballs.  However, they are not tapping into the passion of the tournament.  The obvious advantage is no additional production costs.  However, before dumping any ad onto the tournament, marketers need to think about viewer benefit.  Typically, there are two viewer value propositions: entertainment or mass product benefit.  The majority marketers in the tourney take this approach.

Although there are many examples, I was intrigued with the overwhelming amount of commercial exposure for men’s personal care products.  Sure, sports attracts a higher proportion of males, and college sports are more upscale (although upscale may have little to do with these products), but the jump ball for male attention seemed a bit much.  Anyway, here are four of the products with significant air play.

• The AXE Hair Action  commercial is more entertainment than product benefit. The ad uses humor to promote the product benefit. The AXE ad is probably entertaining to their target: a single guy in his teens to twenties — for a mid-40′s guy, not so much.
• Degree for Men is taking a contest approach with Bear Grylls — the guy from Man versus Wild.  Viewers are encouraged to sign up for a Degree Adventure Challenge, where the winner could join Bear in an episode of Man versus Wild.
• Dove Men+Care is running both commercial and online content.  The commercials are pretty straight forward, and center around a mass product benefit approach — Dove’s Micro Moisture. 
• Gillette Body Wash takes a humorous jab at Dove in their commercial.   Like the Dove ad, Gillette uses a product benefit (Odor Shield) in their approach.

Contextual Integration
Contextual Integration is combining elements of the tournament within the ad — hoops, basketballs, basketballs going through hoops.   Contextually, the ad fits.  Normally banner ads are just a front door to the regular site experience.   The following are several examples of marketers integrating into the tournament.

• Hooters ran an expandable banner titled “Catch all the Sports Action at Hooters” on Fox Sports.  The banner, which was adorned with basketballs and Hooters girls, allowed users to enter their zip to find the nearest restaurant.
• Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup is the official .  The ads are simple focusing on the product — the primary change is the commercial tagline (e.g. “The Elite Eight”) and the number of candies.  Online is a different story.  The Reese’s Perfect Play within the NCAA Tourney asks people to vote for the Perfect Play from four videos.  It is a little like the old Pontiac Game Changing Performance, except instead of giving money to a scholarship fund Reese’s will be awarding the sweepstakes winner tickets and a trip to next year’s Final Four in Houston.

Brand Passion
Brand passion is finding the connection between the brand, the tournament, and the fan.  This is not easy to do, and very difficult for many brands.  The core element is a connection.  A connection that builds upon the passion point and the brand.  The following marketers use a brand passion strategy. 

• While on television AT&T ran commercials where Luke Wilson is playing H-O-R-S-E, online the brand created a simple experience where people can do “tweet outs” to tournament teams.   Through CBS Sportsline fans can access AT&T Title Tweets where people can do shout outs to their team via text message or Twitter.  A nice integration for a mobile brand.
• Capital One’s Ivan Brothers  webisodic adventure (running on ESPN.com) follows the journey of the Ivan Brothers — from backwoods basketball phenomenons to March Madness.  The initial video on the YouTube channel has over 980,00 views – quite impressive.   However, the drop off is severe to the rest of the videos with the next highest video getting only about 20,000 views.  This is not uncommon.  The marketer buys views through their banners.  However, viewer interest does not proceed past the initial viewing, and video views drop off dramatically.  The campaign nicely extends Capital One’s Viking Campaign, however, why didn’t they run these ads within the tourney?  All I remember seeing is the Viking ski commercials.
• On television HP ran their commercials, on ESPN HP sponsors HP Amazing 16.  The site encourages fans from the Sweet Sixteen universities to show their passion by uploading photos or posting on the message board — and you get extra points for posting from an HP computer.  The winning school will receive $100,000 in contributions.   On the plus side this sweepstakes builds off the brand line “Let’s Do Amazing”.    It is somewhat limiting by only including the Sweet Sixteen schools.  And like Capitol One, their commercials airing during the tournament where not linked to this campaign.
• On television and online Coke Zero is promoting their Brain Bracket.  Coke Zero is a perennial marketer in March Madness creating annual favorites like Bracket-O-Matic.  Brain Brackets is for the fans.  People submit ideas on how to improve sports from a fan perspective (e.g. The Zebra Cam, ), then users vote for their favorites in bracket match-up.  The Brain Bracket is novel and worth checking out.  Although it is larger March Madness in scope, the bracket approach to picking a winner works.

Which way would you prefer? For many marketers it comes down to efficiency.  They would would prefer spending the money on media — on getting eyeballs, not on production.  I prefer effectiveness over efficiency — every exposure, every experience should count.  My goal would be to come up with a brand passion idea linking the passion of the event with passion within the brand DNA.  You can’t always convert, but you need to step up to the line and give it a shot.

You have many brackets to choose from. You can play for big prizes (the perfect bracket would get you $1 million). You can play for fame against friends, co-workers or the nation.

Either way, this is the time of year to play the brackets. Also, it is the time of year some marketers latch onto the bracket to become relevant. There are several different methods to get into the madness: Go with the Flow or Create Your Own Path.

The idea of Going with the Flow is to sponsor an existing bracket on a major sports site. For example, Hooters has taken center stage on Fox Sports (Fox Sports Hooters Bracket Challenge). The Hooters/Fox brackets participants can win cash prizes and wings.

ESPN (ESPN Tournament Challenge), Yahoo! (Yahoo! Tourney Pick’em), and CBS Sports (CBS Sports Bracket Manager) also have sponsorships from State Farm (ESPN), KFC (Yahoo!) and Enterprise Rent-a-Car (CBS). As you can see by clicking on the links, the Hooters sponsorship is much more demonstrative than State Farm (logo), KFC (logo), and Enterprise (banner).

Creating Your Own Path means creating an autonomous bracket on your own site. For example, Buffalo Wild Wings hosts their own bracket challenge (Buffalo Wild Wings Bracket Challenge). The BWW contest is the same as last year with a character named Brandy teasing participants by claiming she will win, because “You know to much.” BWW participants have an opportunity to win an HDTV with surround sound, camcorders, and gift cards.

Both strategies have pros and cons. Positives for Going with the Flow are the natural traffic to the sports sites and low development costs. The primary drawback is ownership. Sponsoring will get a brand exposure, but do they really own the activity? Hooters will benefit more than the other marketers due to integration and a closer brand/product synergy with the Tournament (I can watch the games at Hooters. KFC, Enterprise and State Farm seem to be just borrowing consumer interest in the tournament).

Positives for Creating Your Own Path include exclusivity and brand building. Like Hooters, BWW has a nice product synergy as a restaurant. Also, they are not sharing the spotlight with ESPN, Fox or CBS Sports. The primary drawback is BWW has to spend money to generate interest and traffic to the contest. I found out about the Bracket Challenge through a BWW email.

Although both strategies have merit, I think there is a bigger opportunity. The opportunity to build on the natural behavior of filling out the bracket. The opportunity to be part of the bracket conversation.

In my opinion, the most interesting bracket site does not exist this year. For several years Coke Zero offered an entertaining, bracket generating tool called the Bracket-o-matic. I discussed the application in a blog last year (Let the Bracket-o-Matic Madness Begin).

The advantage of the Bracket-o-Matic is it accentuated the process of filling out brackets. It built upon the natural behavior of completing a bracket. It aided the process of deciding which team will win. For example, does North Dakota State have a shot at beating Kansas in the opening round? Or will Purdue get to the Final Four?

With this said, you only have til tomorrow noon to complete your brackets. Good Luck!