- Sometimes it’s the fans that make the magic happen. During this year’s NCAA basketball tournaments, Coca-Cola is giving a glass slipper to the team whose fans helped propel their Cinderella story.
- The prize will be a “glass sipper” trophy fashioned in the form of a basketball show. The trophy is “inspired by” the brand’s well-known contour bottle and is a nod to basketball’s ties to sneaker culture.
- Along with the trophy, Coca-Cola has fashioned a new version of its “Fan Work is Thirsty Work” campaign that celebrates fans’ dedication to their teams. The new spot highlights the passion basketball fans show to their teams with unique rituals and “if you know, you know” moments.
It’s rare that the Cinderella story team winds up with a trophy at the end of the NCAA basketball tournament, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve some accolades. The Coca-Cola Glass Sipper will be awarded to the team in each of the men’s and women’s tournaments that defied expectations, thanks to the fans who pushed them along.
The promo is part of a larger brand effort throughout the tournament, which includes the revamped television commercial. The spot celebrates fans through several colleges’ fight songs. It begins with a basketball tip-off before showing fans from North Carolina, Duke, UConn and other schools singing their songs with fervor as they get hyped up for the game.
The spot will run through the national championship games on CBS, TNT, TBS, TRU, ESPN, ABC and on digital and social channels. The out-of-home campaigns will run in tournament host cities with a hyper-relevant fan-targeted approach.
