Sprint Gets inside Manning’s Mind
Execution: Online Game
Target: NFL Fans
Rating: ***
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri
Description:
This is the online extension of an advertising campaign we will review separately. Manning’s Mind is an online NFL trivia game which pits you against Indianapolis Colts’ Quarterback Peyton Manning. The game is structured using trivia questions to determine the outcome of basic football plays. Players can choose different difficulty level questions which correspond to different yard gains. They then have a few seconds to hit a buzzer before Manning answers the question for them and wins the play. There is a leaderboard and the ability to issue challenges to friends. This promotion supports NFL Mobile service on Sprint.
What Works:
Manning’s Mind is a well-executed online game which is easy to understand, playable and engaging (if you like football trivia.) It hits Sprint’s target pretty closely by weeding out casual fans pretty quickly with very difficult trivia questions. The ‘high concept’ of matching Peyton’s mind against your own is a good premise for the game. This will make a good time-killer for bored office workers.
What Doesn’t:
This game lacks the ‘gotta-have-it’ immediacy of such online classics as Subservient Chicken. The brand linkage is not strong. Peyton Manning is a bigger brand in football than Sprint, and it’s easy to miss the Sprint logo above his shoulder on the website. The connection to the NFL Mobile service is very soft – there is no offer to hook the game user into the service. We would have expected at the very least to see top online players rewarded with free NFL Mobile as well as a trial offer of some sort.  To this advertising blog, Manning’s Mind looks like another example of solid online properties being wasted because of a lack of strong brand linkage.
Branding Bottom Line:
Sprint’s Marketing Department should have tapped Manning’s Mind.