For sports fans, Schedule Release Day is one of the most anticipated days in the calendar, as it signals the arrival of their favorite team’s season. Whether they are attending games in-person or tuning in from around the world, this moment allows fans to start planning their own schedule and how they will engage with the Chicago Bulls throughout the season. As a result, it has become imperative for us to capitalize on the excitement of the moment and create a schedule release that spurs fan engagement and action.
Since the 2021-22 NBA season, the Chicago Bulls and AT&T have partnered together to create an annual schedule release that seeks to both push the creative boundaries and establish a connection with our fans. Our previous schedule releases in 2021 (NBA Paint Collaboration) and in 2023 (90’s 8-bit video game-themed) were award-winning activations that garnered rave reviews from fans and on social media, which generated fan momentum for us going into the season.
For our 2024-25 schedule release, we knew we wanted to create a video that would once again resonate strongly with our global fanbase but also continue to showcase our ingenuity and create a strong impression with audiences across the larger social media landscape. With more than 70% of our social media followers hailing from outside the United States, it is crucial that the content we create connects with all our fans and sets the stage for the rest of the season.
We approached the planning of our schedule release with these elements in mind:
Sticky and Rewatchable: We want our video to be rewatchable and unique to captivate our audience in a way that leaves them wanting to watch it more than once.
Breaks Through: We want our video to stand out, as all 30 NBA teams are releasing their schedules on the same day at the same time.
Easter Eggs: We also want to create a piece that contains “easter eggs,” or hidden moments in the content, that allows us to create deeper connections with and garner favorable reactions and comments from our fans.
Keeping these criteria in mind, we reached out to Singapore-based illustrator and artist Serene Teh. Teh specializes in a unique paper animation style, where she illustrates individual images on paper and then hand-flips the paper in multiple different directions and styles to tell a story. Her art form had not yet been featured in a sports schedule release setting, so we jumped at the chance to treat our fans and wider audience to a uniquely artistic video.
In just 48 seconds, we created a story where current players joined our mascot, Benny The Bull, to defeat notable NBA foes in iconic cities across the country to match our schedule for the season, culminating in a victory back in Chicago. We wanted this video to feature some of our key players, introduce some of our newer players, and highlight key NBA opponents and cities.
Throughout the video, we incorporated natural integrations of our partner AT&T. Whether it was on billboards in Times Square, New York City, or the arena LEDs at the United Center, AT&T’s branding was featured prominently and naturally. Since AT&T also presents the Slam Dunk Contest at NBA’s All-Star Weekend, we also intentionally incorporated multiple dunks in the video to tie into to their broader sponsorship.
To build fan excitement and anticipation, we posted a series of graphics and schedule assets in similar hand-illustrated form, teasing the video before its release and giving fans a complete artistic experience on schedule release day.
Our paper animation schedule release sparked plenty of excitement across social media, with many noting that they were impressed with the art style and creativity behind the piece. The video and accompanying graphics garnered over 1.4 million impressions and more than 700,000 video views across Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Threads. On Instagram specifically, the schedule release video received the highest number of video views across all partnered content so far this season.
Our video post generated comments from external brands and was also rated very highly across sports media outlets and newsletters. CBS Sports and Clutch Points ranked the Bulls as having the top schedule release this season as compared with all 30 NBA teams. Additionally, Yahoo! Sports and Yardbarker included the Bulls as part of their list of top schedule releases.
“This is art, plain and simple. It showed a lot of creativity and dedication.” – CBS Sports
“Chicago told a magnificent story of their 2024 season through a 3D paper flip-book-like video. The editing was impressive, and the artistic value was inspiring.” – Clutch Points
More importantly, fans poured in with positive comments, complimenting the creativity of the video and commenting on the easter eggs they spotted throughout the piece. We received more than 4,000 shares and comments, as well as a 96.3% positive sentiment rating, according to Nielsen. Through our unique paper animation-style schedule release video, we were able to successfully generate excitement about the upcoming season and stand out among the other NBA teams.
