- State Farm is heralding the 2026 WNBA season with a new campaign featuring Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark and a talking stanchion pad.
- The new effort, timed to the May 8 kickoff of the season, depicts the pad (a State Farm branded covering on the stanchions holding up the basketball backboard and net) having conversations with Clark during game breaks and at a late night practice session..
- The stanchion pad has been a staple off State Farm’s basketball marketing for 18 years. The new talking pad character is meant to draw a parallel between Clark, the pad and State Farm going above and beyond the call.
“Almost 20 years ago, we saw an opportunity to brand the stanchions – the pad attached to the hoops that you see in every basketball game’s camera shot,” said Alyson Griffin, head of marketing at State Farm. “It was a major innovation in sports marketing at the time, because it took unbranded, on-camera real estate and authentically inserted the State Farm brand into games. With this in mind, we had to ask ourselves: how can we take this important asset and make it work even harder?”
“That’s where our new basketball campaign featuring the State Farm Stanchion Pad comes in,” Griffin continued. “The campaign brings the State Farm Stanchion Pad to life by drawing attention to a brand asset that might have started to blend into the background over the years. It was the creative spark for the campaign and a physical reminder of how State Farm supports our customers, helping ensure they feel confident in their coverage through personalized options based on individual needs.”
In the first of two commercials for the campaign, the stanchion begins a conversation with Clark about how they both have seen everything in the game (in part because the pad is 10-feet off the ground), just as State Farm looks at all aspects of its customers lives to ensure complete coverage. The second spot depicts the two conversing in an after hours practice session, just like State Farm makes the extra effort to stay on top of its game. (Lest anyone be concern about Clark’s perception, the stanchion pad also acknowledges – and is acknowledged by – others in the area.)
The commercials will break during the Connecticut/New York and Washington/Toronto games that kick off the WNBA season on May 8. The campaign will run across linear, digital, social, online video and streaming.
