Texas advertising students develop new Longhorn Network campaign
On Monday, Longhorn Network launched a new brand campaign in collaboration with University of Texas Advertising students enrolled in the College of Communication.
The students conceived a “Watch What You Love” campaign theme and drove every aspect of the creative process. The collaboration is just one example of how Longhorn Network is working with the UT community to affect and enrich the lives of students and alumni.
Cody Tidmore, now a Texas graduate, said the opportunity taught him a number of lessons about real world challenges and solutions in advertising. Whether it was setting a timeframe, listening to more ideas, managing expectations or providing timely updates to stakeholders, there were many small challenges to conquer before the team could deliver a great campaign.
“No matter how much we try to prepare them or how many internships they have, their first job is always a bit of a wake-up call,” added Ryan Romero, the instructor who led this course.
“Working with clients, even great ones like Longhorn Network, is hard at first. As a student you’re used to answering to this nebulous idea of what a brand is. In this case the brand is real, the people who represent the brand are real, and they have opinions that matter. Learning to develop and evolve your creative ideas to fit everyone’s needs is huge. This group got a chance to do just that.”
In Little Longhorn, one of the spots that debuted today, a father shares a legendary Longhorn bedtime story with his daughter. Though it’s past her bedtime, she challenges him in an unexpected way.
In another spot, a homesick Texas grad stares into the New York skyline before creatively replacing an iconic New York landmark with a symbol of home.
“We wanted to change the way sports commercials are normally portrayed — to make sports commercials with no sports and find out who these rabid fans truly are,” said Tidmore.
“We came to the conclusion that a lot of them are everyday people with lavish fandom living inside them. So we started to think, what are these everyday situations the everyman fan would do day-by-day and we injected it with that fandom. We spent countless hours crafting these situations to feel natural and conversational, and I could not be more proud of where we landed.”
Additional spots that continue to celebrate Longhorn fandom will debut in the coming weeks.
“The breadth and depth of the work the students presented to us was really remarkable,” added Jill Husak, associate director, sports marketing.
“It was a great opportunity for Longhorn Network to further entrench itself within the University of Texas, but also a great opportunity for students to not only work on a real world project, but something that has the brand of Longhorn Network and ESPN associated to it.”
In addition to the spots, check out the behind the scenes video above which takes an inside look at how this campaign and the collaboration came together.
