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Audience research uncovered that target Chase Freedom Unlimited consumers are heavily engaging in the NBA, over-indexing on viewership and spending more to enhance their fan experience. As the credit card that rewards you with cashback around the moments that matter most, we wanted to get the word out that Freedom Unlimited is the perfect card for our audience to make more of their fandom.
While Chase is not an official sponsor of the NBA, Freedom Unlimited already had a champion of personal ?nance and an avid fan of the game in our longstanding spokesperson, Kevin Hart. We invited NBA superstars Stephen Curry and Allen Iverson to join in – creating a legendary cashbacking lineup that infused new meaning into iconic references, events, and rituals that our audience love. Every part of our “Cashback Like a Pro” NBA playoffs campaign built upon NBA culture and gave it a cashbacking twist – showing how Freedom Unlimited can bring these moments, and our audience’s game, to the next level.
The NBA is more than a sports league; it's a cultural phenomenon with major influence.
To its fans, basketball represents a cultural identity that runs deep, providing community and even creating a shared language. To appeal to them, you need to be able to prove you’re one of them – that you speak basketball.
And we knew that target Chase Freedom Unlimited consumers were basketball fans. They over-indexed on NBA purchases and basketball fandom. To catch the attention of our audience (and boost Chase Freedom Unlimited’s brand affinity and consideration), we created the brand’s first ever basketball-focused campaign. In order to introduce the brand without committing any fouls and maintain respect for the league’s history, we set out to make our specific brand of cashbacking resonate with its fans— by reviving an iconic cultural moment that they cared about and without leveraging teams and other players.
We launched the campaign with a nod to Allen Iverson’s famous and often-memed “We Talkin’ About Practice” press conference as well as additional social extensions around the Iverson cameo, connecting clever winks about Iverson’s nicknames and storied career to Freedom Unlimited card bene?ts.
Nodding to other inside-jokes for basketball diehards, Kevin Hart and Stephen Curry turned to poking fun at Curry’s mouth-guard chewing idiosyncrasy – using his habit to deliver Freedom Unlimited’s benefits for OLV.
Every channel was evaluated through the lens of the fan experience. We studied basketball-related content our audience would be served, search for, or watch on each channel. Then we built bespoke pieces of creative with settings that would be quickly familiar to them, like the announcer booth, in-game jumbotrons, and press conferences.
We were recognized among die-hards for returning AI to the spotlight, driving 83% positive sentiment across social mentions, 2.9M organic views & 59K engagements across official channels and user generated content (made by fans talking about their love for the spots).
