The McDonald’s All American Games are still an important checkpoint for top-tier talent on their way to the pros, but to maintain relevance into the future as more all-star games emerge, we need to continuously reestablish ours as the definitive, premier showcase of legends-in-the-making. That’s why everything we do is geared toward hero’ing the players, co-creating with them and publishing hype-building original content that makes them the stars, all with a look + feel that reflects the youthful energy of online sports culture and incorporates themes of the host city of Houston, TX.
Our approach to this year’s All American Games was all about designing for players to share our content by spending more time getting to know each of them on video, and leveling up the style factor in our photography.
With the attention of top scouts and universities as well as exuberant basketball fans eager to discover the next legend of the game, they’re already influencers in their own right, often boasting hundreds of thousands – sometimes millions – of followers on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
As with any real-time event, the biggest challenges are competing to be timely among all the external media coverage and individual creators and striving to have the most unique perspective you can, all while not knowing exactly what you’ll get on camera.
We aimed to make sure our content covered the most interesting angles of the experience, from hard-nosed basketball during practices and gametime, to playful interview sessions, sneaker unboxings, BTS moments, player celebrations, and locker room talk. Always putting the players front and center to elicit sharing resulted in nearly 5,000,000 organic impressions for this year’s Games, and ensured that audiences, including future All Americans, saw the Games as not only the premiere basketball talent pipeline, but also a week that’s truly a joy to be a part of.
Always putting the players front and center to elicit sharing resulted in nearly 5,000,000 organic impressions for this year’s Games, a 116% increase in engagement rate YoY (Instagram), 30,000 social followers added, and ensured that audiences, including future All Americans, saw the Games as not only the premiere basketball talent pipeline, but also a week that’s truly a joy to be a part of.
