REMOTE REUNION
driven by Kubota
When the 2020 season of the Canadian Football League was cancelled, I led the creation of a variety of bespoke content programs for League partners which captured the revenue normally attributed to traditional broadcast assets. The restrictions of COVID -19 on filming meant that we had to get creative using our game archives and recording via Zoom. Remote Reunion driven by Kubota was one of these programs.
This short-form video series started with the idea that it would be a ton of fun to watch classic games with some of our most legendary players and uncover the behind-the-scenes moments you didn't see in the broadcast. With over 70 years of games in our video archives, we researched historical games for each of our nine football teams. We then narrowed down this list, by gathering data on which players resonated with our core audience. We also had to consider which players would be willing and able to participate in the filming process.
For the brand package, I provided creative direction to the in-house graphics team which included a variety of retro-looking images and graphics that invoked the feeling of old VHS tapes, parental advisory committee stickers and classic football video games.
These elements were crafted with the execution of the show in mind, as I knew there would be times we would need to see multiple players onscreen at once while also hero-ing the game footage.
I delivered a demo and pitch package elements to our partnerships team, with recommendations on which league partners could be the right fit for the series.
Once Kubota was on board, we integrated their branding throughout the video elements and promotional social assets.
To promote the series, I guided my team in the creation of a series of social media posts for each episode which included episodic teaser clips, "Guess The Player" graphics and football stats infographics. We also executed a social-based digital activation via Pico, where fans played an on-platform quiz game after signing up for our weekly newsletter. My CFL.ca managing editor crafted weekly articles, which delved deeper into the history of each historic game. Some of the CFL legends from the series appeared on our weekly podcast "The Waggle" to further promote the series. The program drove 3M impressions and 80k engagements across social media. Each episode averaged 5K views on CFL.ca and a few hundred more via YouTube.
Remote Reunion - 2011 Grey Cup
In this episode, the stars of the BC Lions deliver plenty of laughs as they re-live the wildest moments of their win.