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May 18, 2010

 ESPN Introduces ESPN CreativeWorks to Develop Cross-Platform Sports-Themed Creative for Clients

 NEW YORK, NY – In an effort to continue to provide unparalleled creative and strategic solutions for clients, ESPN’s Customer Marketing and Sales Group today announced ESPN CreativeWorks – a resource to develop custom co-branded and client-branded creative across all screens and devices specifically targeted to sports fans and ESPN’s audience. 

 “CreativeWorks is rooted in our special relationship with fans,” said Ed Erhardt, President, ESPN Customer Marketing and Sales.  “No one knows our fans better than we do, and we can leverage that knowledge to help our clients deliver their brand message to our audience in the most effective way.” 

 ESPN CreativeWorks includes a select group of copywriters, designers, developers, producers and affiliated creative agencies with a proven track record, who will develop advertising for clients across ESPN’s platforms, including video, digital, print and mobile screens.  CreativeWorks will give clients the flexibility to create brand creative with a sports theme or co-branded creative with the ESPN brand.  The CreativeWorks team will work with clients from start to finish, acting as a one-stop-shop for campaign creative and execution, creating a seamless experience for the client.

 “We’ve been providing creative services for a while, but lately demand has increased,” said Sean Hanrahan, Senior Vice President of Marketing Solutions. “In addition,  recent research confirmed that what we are producing really resonates with our fans, so we decided it was time to structure our creative resources in a bigger, more formalized way. 

 In preparation for the launch of CreativeWorks, ESPN conducted research at the Disney Ad Lab to determine the effectiveness of a previous campaign co-created and executed with Toshiba.  The results showed that key measures improved in several categories, including:

• Free Recall (measures memory retrieval/top-of-mind recall) more than doubled from 19% (control) to 42% (for the ESPN creative)
• Recognition grew from 59% to 83%
• Cued Recall (measures memory storage/prompted recall) went from 39% to 79%

 ESPN CreativeWorks is currently in active discussions with clients and will announce future campaigns at a later date.

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