For year two of its Bank Shot contest involving The Toronto Raptors, Tangerine Bank is taking a fresh-squeezed approach.
Natalie Jones, Tangerine’s CMO, says whereas last year’s season-long contest focused on community initiatives, this year’s edition is designed for the fans. The contest activates the bank’s ongoing sponsorship agreement with NBA Canada as the official bank of the Toronto Raptors.
“Our first season of Bank Shot led to $125,000 worth of contributions that we put towards the Tangerine Project Forward basketball community initiative,” Jones tells MiC. “This season we have made a pivot with Bank Shot: we’re really excited to put the fans at the centre of the experience.”
This season, whenever a Toronto Raptor scores a bank shot, a fan will be awarded a prize ranging from team swag and autographed jerseys to team toques and a trip to the NBA finals or other Raptors games. (A bank shot in basketball is when a player scores a basket by bouncing the ball off the backboard and into the net.)
Jones tells MiC that Tangerine wanted to “give the fans something back directly” and have aimed the campaign at Raptors fans across Canada.
“It’s about that in-arena, in-game experience, as well as how that translates to the at-home experience and being able to give fans that opportunity to win prizing across Canada.”
Jones says Tangerine’s Bank Shot creative will be visible throughout Scotiabank Arena.
“Tangerine has a great deal of contractual assets with MLSE that we’re able to leverage for Bank Shot,” she explains. “That includes things like Raptors TV, Raptors.com [and] obviously all of the assets in arena. We’ve really been able to supplement that contractual plan with other placements, whether that be programmatic placements, that really allows us to reach in scale our target audience and people who are really inclined towards sports affinities.
“We’re able to drive people to the site, so, our paid media plan – over and above – would include things like contextual banners on sites like The Score or social posts that Raptors fans are able to engage with and then some video on YouTube and Twitch.”
Jones says that the in-arena and out-of-arena assets “complement each other,” as 15-and-30-second OLVs will be inserted across social media, DOOH and in-house at Scotiabank Arena.
“At Tangerine, we’re all about uncomplicating and simplifying,” Jones explains. “So, we really try to keep everything, including all of our Toronto Raptors Bank Shot messaging really simple. When the Raptors score bank shots, fans wins prizes, so that message translates in-arena and out-of-arena.”
She also says that a TV and radio presence “details” the mechanics of how the contest works.
“That includes things like audio nods, to what a shot would actually sound like, or the cheering or the buzzing, so we try to create that exciting in-arena feel throughout all of our assets” Jones confirms. “But when you step into the arena, the assets really do clearly communicate that the Tangerine and the Raptors partnerships put emphasis on the fan experience from a Tangerine perspective.”
Rethink and its creative director Randy Stein updated the campaign and PHD handled the media buy.
Although Jones declined to disclose numbers, she said that the budget and media spend for this year’s Bank Shot campaign is in line with what the Bank Shot campaign was last year.
The ultimate goal of the contest, she says, is to entrench the positioning of the brand as “the bank of basketball” on and off the court.
“So, this year, this particular forum and the way we’ve designed the Bank Shot campaign really does allow Tangerine to engage with fans in a way that we haven’t before.”