Brand/Rebrand: Sportsnet 360

07.23.2013

Network: Sportsnet 360 Creative: Rogers Creative Group

Target Audience: Males, 18-45

Campaign Led By: Dean Bender, VP, Creative, Rogers Media; Paul Brousseau, Senior Director, Marketing, Sportsnet; David O'Brien, Senior Director, Brand Creative, Rogers Creative Group; Sam Naswari, Director, Rogers Creative Group; Marcus Di Pede, Producer, Rogers Creative Group; Bill Templeton, Project Manager, Rogers Creative Group; Sady Magendran, Director, Creative Design, Rogers Creative Group; Jennifer Midgley, Studio Manager, Rogers Creative Group; Jason Allies, Associate Art Director, Rogers Creative Group

Objective: Canada's Rogers Media agreed to purchase The Score sports network in 2012, an established brand whose youthful fans were accustomed to a "fast-paced, edgy, info-driven, and very nimble" viewing experience, said Dean Bender, VP of creative for Rogers. In 2013, the sale was approved and it came time to bring The Score closer to Rogers' overarching sports-related brand, Sportsnet, which also has the channels Sportsnet ONE, Sportsnet World and four regionals: Sportsnet East, Sportsnet West, Sportsnet Ontario and Sportsnet. The challenge was to do so "without alienating the viewers The Score already had," said Bender.

Steps Taken: Sportsnet was still riding high on its own 2011 rebrand, for which it worked with creative agency Troika. While The Score offered speedy, modern elements that Rogers was very excited about, such as an ever-present on-screen ticker, the rebranding of the new, edgier channel needed to combine, according to Bender, the look and feel of the "fantastic foundation" Sportsnet had been cultivating for the last two years.

Bender's team began by renaming The Score as "Sportsnet 360," which was perhaps the easiest part of the rebranding process, according to Bender. "Sportsnet 360 was something we felt strongly about," he said. "That name does the work for you. Every angle and side of the story is covered, providing a great starting point." At the purely physical level, the new name could also manifest in animation with circular elements in it, supplementing an overall color scheme that pushed toward Sportsnet's hues of amber and electric blues. A redesigned logo saw Sportsnet's signature swooping underline crossing into the "360" part of the name, connecting the brand with a new, all-encompassing channel.

Bridging the gap between the new channel's edgier look and feel and Sportsnet's more traditional approach, Bender's team adapted The Score's iconic ticker to be common to both networks. On the primary Sportsnet channel, the ticker comes on only during news events while on the new Sportsnet 360 it continues to run all the time. "We're investing in new technology that will be built on an expression hardware platform, which is one of your real time animating platforms," said Bender. "So we're having a lot of fun developing a lot of animations and abilities within this ticker that will make it much more high-tech and polished."

Leading up to the July 1 launch of Sportsnet 360, Rogers engaged in a PR campaign anchored by two series of clever promos. The first one featured Tim and Sid, a tandem of talent brought over from The Score, and was designed to appeal to edgy carryover fans from The Score while also prepping them for their channel's new look. In one, Tim pontificates on "the ramifications of Sportsnet purchasing The Score." Sid chimes in, "We stared into the eyes of the beast, and came away the victor," only to be admonished by Tim for getting carried away.Â

The second series of promos "was a little more external to all the other viewers we were inviting to watch [the new channel]," said Bender. These spots track sports prodigy "Johnson" as he makes his way from childhood (where two doctors place a $200 bet based on his hockey prediction) to the corporate world (where a roomful of suits pronounce him "genius" after he spouts a Celtics '84 Finals anecdote in response to a poor quarterly earnings report). "Sportsnet 360: Fuel your sports IQ," concludes each promo.

Lessons Learned: "Being from the creative side of things, I'm just learning more and more to rely on research and the relationship we have with marketing," said Bender. "We have a very collaborative team - marketing doesn't have an agenda, we don't have an agenda. Trust in the research. Trust in the teammates in marketing. Let them bring the message and see how you can bring it to life. I find it somewhat liberating to just concentrate on the creative process and not worry about the other stuff."