Bracket ‘Gut’ Busters: ESPN March Madness Tournament Challenge Campaign
Monday, February 27, 2023 at 06:30PM By Barry Janoff
February 27, 2023: With March Madness fast-approaching, ESPN has unveiled a multi-media effort to support its Men’s Bracket Tournament Challenge and Women’s Bracket Tournament Challenge, as well as its exclusive coverage of the Div. I Women’s Tournament and Final Four in Houston.
“Go With Your Gut” offers a humorous look at fans “going with their gut based on epiphanies” to help fill out their tournament brackets.
“ESPN Tournament Challenge continues to be the No. 1 bracket game and consistently reaches a younger, more casual audience between the men’s and women’s games,” Seth Ader, ESPN vp-brand marketing, said via the network.
“We’re encouraging fans to go with their gut and embrace the roller coaster of emotions that March college basketball brings us.”
In 2022, ESPN said its Men’s Tournament Challenge had 17.3 million completed brackets.
ESPN also said its Women’s Tournament Challenge saw a 76% year-over-year increase in participation from 2021 to 2022, but did not offer specific entry numbers.
Based on gut or not, through the first weekend of tournament play in 2022, no perfect brackets remained in either men’s or women’s ESPN Tournament Challenge games, according to ESPN.
The NCAA oversees its own bracket challenge.
Creative will air across ESPN platforms as well as digital and social media.
The campaign was built with Sausalito, Calif.-based Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners.
Three anchor spots have fans rooting for specific teams when it comes time to create their Tournament brackets.
In “Husky,” 
a man who has outgrown his shirt says he is “feeling a little husky,” which has him thinking about the UConn Huskies.
“Birding” finds a woman bird-watching, who spies “a real-live Azure-hooded blue jay . . . as in Creighton Blue Jays. Creighton flies through the early rounds!”
A couple becomes frustrated while building DIY “Furniture,” and the woman stomps off, saying to her partner, “I’m upset. We’re fighting. And you’re Irish . . . Notre Dame Fighting Irish pull off an upset!”
“With this new effort, we wanted to embrace the fact that statistically, no one — not even the most well-informed super fan — is capable of filling out the perfect bracket,” Robyn Tenenbaum, creative director at BSSP, said via the agency.
“The uncertainty and the madness and the chaos are really what make Tournament Challenge so engaging and so easy to love. We wanted the creative to highlight that feeling.”
ESPN will air the NCAA Div. I Women’s Basketball Tournament beginning with Selection Sunday on March 12, with the Final Four March 31 and April 2.
Back to Home Page