January 22nd, 2013 marked the 7th anniversary of Kobe Bryant’s legendary 81pt game. To celebrate the special day, we partnered NBA TV and Kobe Bryant to execute a live tweet event in which Kobe supplied insightful commentary from start to finish. Celebrities, athletes, and fans took notice, interacting with Kobe on Twitter pulling out interesting insights from an otherwise dusty archival game. Kobe and #COUNTONKOBE trended throughout the day. Viewership records were set for NBA TV. With an overall media budget of $0, Nike Basketball and Kobe established a new intriguing formula to tie social to age-old famous archival games.Most live-tweet campaigns feature brands attaching themselves to tangentially related events (at best). The typical brand uses borrowed interest to promote its message and rides the snowball of Twitter buzz and inertia. The Nike basketball/Kobe Bryant 81-point game Twitter event should win this award because it changed this live-tweeting playbook in two big ways: 1. Instead of attaching itself to an event, it was the event. The buzz for the anniversary of Kobe’s 81-point game would not have been present without the idea to have Kobe tweet during it. What would have been a slow day for Kobe instead lead to #COUNTONKOBE organically trending on Twitter throughout the day. 2. It’s the first of its kind to take archival sports footage and turn it into a live event. The game was a rerun that likely would have garnered only average viewership on NBA TV. However, because of the campaign, the game became the highest-rated non-live broadcast in the history of NBA TV. Kobe and Nike Basketball were able to provide a deeper narrative and backstory to one of the most impressive individual performances in NBA history. This idea is sure to be replicated with athletes and classic games from all sports. We should win because we made reruns relevant on Twitter.
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