Dive Brief:
- Paramount Advertising recently launched the CBS Sports Creator Studio to connect brands with sports influencers and creators to access pre-game events, parties and behind-the-scenes content, according to information shared with Marketing Dive.
- Brands will also have an opportunity to create white-label content with athletes and creators that is aligned to a specific sport, season or moment.
- Paramount Advertising is an umbrella business division of the media conglomerate whose properties includes BET, Comedy Central and CBS, which will broadcast the Super Bowl LVIII game in 2024. The content studio will use Paramount Advertising’s platforms to amplify content and its cross-platform reporting to deliver insight.
Dive Insight:
As sports audiences are increasingly using two screens at once — particularly with the rise in sports betting apps — the CBS Sports Creator Studio is a bid to help brands develop interesting and engaging second-screen content. It arrives ahead of what’s shaping up to be an important year for the broader Paramount company, which, in addition to having the broadcasting rights for big game on CBS, will also stream the big game on Paramount+ for subscribers.
While the Super Bowl may not have the same draw it once did amid an increasingly fragmented viewing landscape, it still remains one of the single biggest tentpole events of the year. Integrating influencer marketing into the mix in a bigger way makes sense as younger sports fans spend more time on digital platforms.
“These younger audiences are following our events on social platforms, we think that there’s an opportunity there to kind of put these two things together,” John Bogusz, executive vice president of sports for Paramount Advertising, told The Hollywood Reporter. “Impressions are growing, people are following the events on their phones, and we can offer that to advertisers to tie in more with their campaigns with our events.”
Paramount Advertising says the new offering will provide brands with extensive creative collaboration throughout the entire development process; access to a roster of influencers across numerous sports and platforms; amplification capabilities to optimize campaign performance; and access to The Match Report, a proprietary influencer campaign-tracking dashboard.
At launch, the CBS Sports Creator Network will have three initial offerings: Influence X Tentpole, which will center around large, tentpole events across Paramount’s network, including the Super Bowl and March Madness; Influence & CBS Sports IP, which will offer behind-the-scenes access to CBS Sports studios, talent and footage; and White Label Influence, which will pair brands with athletes or content creators.
The news is the latest indication that marketing leveraging influencers and creators continues to be a key focus for marketers following new research showing that influencer marketing spend is growing faster than social ad spend.
