The AVP Champions Cup Series
Weathering a pandemic.
From Quarantine To The Court.
As large gatherings and fan-attended events became prohibited nearly overnight due to COVID-19, professional sporting events across the world, including the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, were stopped in their tracks. With the 2020 beach volleyball season fast approaching, the AVP was forced to make the difficult decision to postpone and subsequently cancel all fan-attended events for the season.
The entire world was yearning for the return of live sports, and the AVP wanted to be one of the first to answer that call. A successful and timely pivot to a newly constructed season would help America’s professional beach volleyball league reach a new sports-deprived audience and build substantial brand recognition. With Brand Knew’s guidance, the AVP became one of the first leagues in the world to successfully spearhead this return to play, and the first women’s sports league to do so in the United States. The AVP’s shift to a fully digital fan experience received acknowledgement from outlets like Forbes & ESPN, while tournament viewership saw a 70% increase on NBC and a 66% increase on Amazon Prime Video across the globe.
Branding The Beach.
After implementing multiple rounds of AVP event postponements and cancellations, it was time to save the season and turn adversity into opportunity. Within a short 10-day period, between notifying athletes of the original 2020 season cancellation and the announcement of a new season format, we mobilized to produce the name, logo, brand guidelines, messaging, and entire brand identity for the newly formed “Champions Cup Series.” Logos for each individual event were created under a cohesive Champions Cup Series umbrella, setting the AVP up to successfully craft the storyline for the new season format.
New Objectives For a Unique Season.
Since all fans would be tuning in virtually for this one-of-a-kind series, we shifted our creative and messaging to fully own the digital fan experience. Pivoting from previous season content strategies, our key priorities were to increase the cadence of content across AVP’s digital channels and give fans constant access to the action. Instead of bringing fans to the beach, the entire AVP beach experience was brought to the comfort of fans’ homes.
The main objectives for our content strategy were to drive tune-in for AVP’s NBC broadcast and provide fans with quick access to an abundance of information about the Series across web and social. Ultimately, these two objectives drove all content strategy decisions for the 2020 season.
New Objectives For a Unique Season.
Since all fans would be tuning in virtually for this one-of-a-kind series, we shifted our creative and messaging to fully own the digital fan experience. Pivoting from previous season content strategies, our key priorities were to increase the cadence of content across AVP’s digital channels and give fans constant access to the action. Instead of bringing fans to the beach, the entire AVP beach experience was brought to the comfort of fans’ homes.
The main objectives for our content strategy were to drive tune-in for AVP’s NBC broadcast and provide fans with quick access to an abundance of information about the Series across web and social. Ultimately, these two objectives drove all content strategy decisions for the 2020 season.
Unprecedented Social Growth.
Leading with our objectives and leaning in to our creativity, we created a compelling social media strategy that resulted in double the amount of content output as compared to an average 2019 tournament weekend. This increase in social media post frequency showcasing developing storylines and new stats, resulted in AVP’s Instagram account organically increasing in follower count by 7%, garnering 14k new followers in just three weeks. Social content posted during this time earned over 30 million impressions, and over 2 million video views. AVP’s website and social accounts became sources to consume highlights and statistics in real-time, elevating the at-home experience for fans around the world.
Bringing The Sand To The Screen.
The AVP’s live scoring and brackets experiences received substantial traffic throughout the 2019 season. To complement this experience, our web development team introduced and built new Statistics & Leaderboard pages to give fans even more information in real-time. By easily and accurately supplying fans with in-depth statistics throughout the Champions Cup Series, the AVP website became a one-stop-shop for broadcasters, announcers, athletes, coaches, die-hard fans and new viewers alike, to gain a better understanding of how impressive these athletes really are.
Building the infrastructure for a stronger stat narrative has added value not only to the AVP brand, but also to the entire sport of beach volleyball. Fans continue to understand and analyze the sport in ways that have never been explored before, establishing the AVP as a thought-leader in the industry.
Bringing The Sand To The Screen.
The AVP’s live scoring and brackets experiences received substantial traffic throughout the 2019 season. To complement this experience, our web development team introduced and built new Statistics & Leaderboard pages to give fans even more information in real-time. By easily and accurately supplying fans with in-depth statistics throughout the Champions Cup Series, the AVP website became a one-stop-shop for broadcasters, announcers, athletes, coaches, die-hard fans and new viewers alike, to gain a better understanding of how impressive these athletes really are.
Building the infrastructure for a stronger stat narrative has added value not only to the AVP brand, but also to the entire sport of beach volleyball. Fans continue to understand and analyze the sport in ways that have never been explored before, establishing the AVP as a thought-leader in the industry.
So Much Content, So Little Time.
AVP events are fast-paced, with multiple teams competing simultaneously and incredible match point rallies waiting for no one. To keep up with the action, we prepared a library of social design templates to highlight whatever the Champions Cup Series could bring. From historic matches like Phil Dalhausser’s 100th career title win, to dominant performances including two-time Olympian April Ross and Alix Klineman’s perfect 12-0 record, we were prepared to amplify any monumental event across social as it happened with streamlined brand consistency for the AVP.
While video production strategy during normal AVP tournaments leans heavily on capturing event atmosphere and fan excitement, we took advantage of these fan-less events by focusing solely on the action in ways that we never could before. The Brand Knew production team was on the sand at each event, documenting and developing athlete narratives, highlighting impressive matches, and capturing highlights. From mic’ing up coaches during matches, to placing GoPros on referees, to capturing courtside action plays for decisive rallies from new angles, the amount of content and type of behind-the-scenes footage produced during the Champions Cup Series supported the AVP’s goal of providing fans with ample diverse and engaging content.
Strength In Numbers.
Both organic and paid media efforts for the Champions Cup Series saw noticeable improvements in efficiency when compared to the full 2019 season, with click thru rate increasing by 238% and cost per click decreasing by 66%. Additionally, the AVP website gained more than 1.1 million pageviews in three weeks, which resulted in a 260k pageview increase when compared to a month’s average traffic in the 2019 season.
Strong content combined with new digital strategies proved effective and drove fans to tune in more than previous seasons, with a 70% increase in tournament viewership on NBC and a 66% increase internationally on Amazon Prime Video.
Strength In Numbers.
Both organic and paid media efforts for the Champions Cup Series saw noticeable improvements in efficiency when compared to the full 2019 season, with click thru rate increasing by 238% and cost per click decreasing by 66%. Additionally, the AVP website gained more than 1.1 million pageviews in three weeks, which resulted in a 260k pageview increase when compared to a month’s average traffic in the 2019 season.
Strong content combined with new digital strategies proved effective and drove fans to tune in more than previous seasons, with a 70% increase in tournament viewership on NBC and a 66% increase internationally on Amazon Prime Video.
A Smashing Success.
After three consecutive weekends of Olympic-tier beach volleyball on Amazon Prime Video and NBC, the AVP was proud to say it successfully and responsibly ran one of the first live sporting events amidst a once-a-century pandemic, with zero positive COVID-19 tests throughout the entire series. Fans and athletes were elated with the chance to experience live competition once again. The success of the Champions Cup Series was highlighted as an exemplary return to live sports by news sources.
The Champions Cup Series was born out of unprecedented circumstances, and Brand Knew confidently navigated unfamiliar territory to create a blueprint for what live sports could look like in 2021 and beyond.
