Fast Breaking

Glitzy professional sporting events such as the Super Bowl may get the big bucks when it comes to tie-ins, but nothing beats the annual NCAA college basketball tournament for passion.

In an era marked by aloof (and occasionally felonious) athletes and major-market team domination, the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s end-of-season tournaments for men’s and women’s hoops strike deep connections with consumers locally, regionally, and nationally. Students, alumni, and general sports fans cheer for their hometown teams, alma maters, or regional favorites. And these allegiances often transfer as the tournament progresses.

“The sponsorship enables you to align with a national brand, but the beauty is that the [NCAA] is made up of colleges that offer a very grassroots, local-level appeal,” says John Lebbad, director of event marketing and sales promotion with Hoffman Estates, IL-based Sears, Roebuck and Co.

The two-week tournament’s national scope and 64-team pools attract loads of eyeballs, but also bring intimidating logistics for promotional plans due to the large number of arenas, schools, and cities it encompasses. Thus, most sponsors wait to pull the trigger on campaigns until the playing field is whittled down to the Final Four, a final weekend held in neutral host cities chosen a year in advance. This year, the men’s finals take place in Minneapolis on March 30, the women’s in St. Louis on April 1.

While the men’s tournament draws more interest, the women’s tournament is growing in popularity, and most corporate partners are sure to incorporate both into their March Madness program. “Our approach is always gender equity,” says Lebbad.

Shoot Around

Holiday Inn, Atlanta, takes its first trip to the Big Dance this year with Your Ticket to March Madness, a loyalty program launched in February to offer free tickets to the tournament’s various rounds in exchange for hotel stays. Through March 14, the more than 10 million members of Holiday Inn’s Priority Club program can exchange their accrued points for ticket packages (on a first come-first served basis). The requests must be made online at www.holiday-inn.com/ncaa. Nearly 4,000 tickets are available, including 60 to the men’s Final Four and 20 to the women’s Final Four.

Packages range from early round tickets for 30,000 points to 450,000 points for the Ultimate Final Four package, which includes roundtrip air, hotel, admission to a pre-game party, a $500 gift card, and a commemorative baseball cap. “We’re not looking to do a promotion where there are two tickets available and millions of people clamoring for them,” says Holiday Inn director of marketing Dan Sweiger.

The campaign kicks off a new two-year NCAA sponsorship deal that will move beyond the hardcourt to other sports. “We’re starting with the crown jewel,” says Sweiger. “But this has legs for other NCAA championships. We see great opportunities for programs with team travel, alumni clubs, and booster club programs.”

Sears’ campaign revolves around the presentation of the Sears/National Champion Basketball award, a Waterford Crystal trophy (insured for $30,000) presented by Sears and the National Association of Basketball Coaches to the top-ranked NCAA Division I team each April. The winner also receives 100 points toward the Sears Director’s Cup, an award presented to NCAA Division I, II, and III schools with the best all-around men’s and women’s athletic programs.

The tournament’s longest-running sponsor, Boston-based Gillette (on board since 1984), this month makes the first significant change to its tie-in campaign in eight years by going a more account-specific route for the Three-Point Challenge, an annual sweeps giving the winner a three-point shot for a $2 million payoff (with half the prize earmarked for charity). The sweeps traditionally has been promoted through FSIs directing consumers to local stores to find a toll-free number on P-O-P displays for entry.

“We did it to publicize our partnership with the NCAA and to build traffic for our products,” says Tom Manchester, Gillette’s vp-sports marketing and events. “In the last few years, our partners — especially mass merchandisers and drug stores — have called for a more customized, account-specific approach.”

Speaking of P-O-P, second-year sponsor Kraft Foods, Glenview, IL, is already rolling out displays and packaging carrying NCAA logos and “The Games Start Here” tagline. The company will host account-specific sweeps giving away prizes ranging from personal computers to college scholarships.

March Madness helps Kraft fill a hole in its promotional matrix. “We’ve been trying to find an event to bridge the Super Bowl-to-Easter gap,” says Kelly Cunningham, director of sales and planning programming. Ryan Partnership, Westport, CT, and J. Brown/LMC, Stamford, CT, handle.

Meanwhile, Pepsi-Cola Co., Somers, NY, will stage a Double The Madness: Win Mad Cash under-the-cap game across the Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Pepsi One, and Wild Cherry Pepsi brands. Select one-liter bottles and fountain cups feature the names of past championship teams; consumers who find the names mail them in for “Mad Cash Certificates” worth $10 at mass merchandisers such as Wal-Mart. Players can win up to five times.

Running the Offense

Another contrast to professional sports sponsorships is that the integrity-minded NCAA is more restrictive about what can be promoted and where. For instance, arena signage tends to be almost non-existent during March Madness. So brands must find creative ways to get their names into the game. Pepsi’s Aquafina brand, for example, set itself as the official (read: exclusive) water on the sidelines of all NCAA sports championships. Telecommunications giant Verizon, New York City, is branding seat cushions around the venue during the men’s championships, while Sears will do the same for the final women’s rounds. (NCAA sponsorships are sold through Host Communications, New York City.)

Corporate partners admit that the NCAA is even skittish about using the word “sweepstakes” in conjunction with a promotion (lest even a benign game of chance tarnish collegiate integrity), preferring that partners instead use the term “random drawing” in marketing collateral.

Restrictions create a “clean zone” around the arenas prohibiting temporary structures such as tents and booths. During the Final Four, the NCAA itself sets up a four-day “Hoop City” festival in a convention center near the arena, and only there can partners set up shop to interact with fans and “emphasize the experience,” says NCAA director of marketing David Kanopp. At this year’s Hoop City, Sears will take pictures of fans with the National trophy, and other brands including Kraft will host booths with various activities.

But the limitations are worth it due to the intensity with which many college hoops fans — who are not as heavily male-skewed as other sports audiences — partake in the tournament; they don’t call it “Madness” for nothing. “We can start a conversation with students who will be in our core [customer base] in a few years,” says Sears’ Lebbad.

Jump ball.