ESPN News- Stay Current Campaign

Thursday, February 01, 2007















For some reason ESPN has decided to make a marketing push for ESPN News with a campaign they're cleverly dubbing the Stay Current campaign. From Brandweek Magazine.....

The “Stay Current” campaign, via Wieden & Kennedy, N.Y., breaks Monday with two 30-second TV spots running across ESPN nets and “possibly ABC,” with support including radio, Internet and print in ESPN The Magazine. The ads take a “humorous look at sports fans whose bad opinions make it seem as if they are talking out of their butts.” In “Mike,” a man tells his friends the Spurs have “no chance this year,” and Millsaps College is “going to the Final Four.”
Wow. That seems like a genius idea.....can't believe somebody hasn't done this before. Oh that's right....it has been done....about a billion times.

***Update***- Deadspin has the breaking news that ESPN 2 is also going to change as well. They are dropping the 2 and it will be just like a second ESPN without the designation of being different. It's an odd move to say the least, but it looks like they're exorcising themselves of all of the ESPN Hollywood/Quite Frankly Demons.

That's really great and all, but you might consider also changing ESPNU to ESPN Zero.....because no one gets that damn channel. HEY YO!

Last Days of ESPN 2 (The Underground)

Posted by Awful Announcing- at 2:50 PM

6 Comments:

there's no better chemistry on TV than Steve Bunin and Michael Kim. It's like they're dancing out there!

The Big Picture said...
Feb 1, 2007, 4:08:00 PM  

Maybe I'm stupid, but if they're not calling it ESPN2 anymore, how the fuck am I supposed to know the difference? If I want to watch World's Strongest Man competitions at 4:30 a.m., do I just have to guess correctly?

Scrappled said...
Feb 1, 2007, 5:34:00 PM  

Exactly, RUTS! Suppose I'm stuck at work, and I call my wife to ask her to tape a game for me. I say "it's on ESPN. No, not that one, the other one." My wife is already confused by the profusion of ESPNs - this is just going to make things impossible.

Eric (Extra P.) said...
Feb 1, 2007, 6:32:00 PM  

Right...we all need ESPN News to stay current, because there's no other outlets availible with up-to-the-minute sports news. This internet thing that I use to get my sports news must be a figment of my imagination.

Dropping the 2 from ESPN2 reeks of Disney saying "we're Disney, and we can do whatever the hell we want, and you'll still watch us." There's no way that change can end well.

The Rub said...
Feb 2, 2007, 8:10:00 AM  

No inside information here; however, I assume it'll still be called ESPN2 in your programming guides, but that the logo in the corner of the screen will say "ESPN" instead of "ESPN2".

Anonymous said...
Feb 2, 2007, 10:16:00 AM  

That only makes sense from a practical, "how do I find it?" standpoint, but...

I suppose I'm just more interested in the "why?" aspect of it. It seems like branding for the sake of branding. Were all of those "The Ocho" jokes from Dodgeball hitting too close to home for someone in Bristol?

Scrappled said...
Feb 2, 2007, 12:38:00 PM  

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