Media Buying for WNBA’s Seattle Storm

The Seattle Storm professional women’s basketball team has a loyal season ticket base in metro Seattle, WA. But they wanted to build single-ticket and family attendance from the areas surrounding the city. CMA media buying brought together its media partnerships to reach key audiences in targeted zip codes. The resulting media campaign delivered the Seattle Storm message on the air and on the street, garnering record-setting ticket sales and increasing the target audiences by 17%.

Plan Components

Zoned online and on-air partnerships with Comcast focused on broadcast zones that effectively delivered the Storm’s target audience. Media buying experience and strategy allowed CMA to delivery a large-scale media campaign on a relatively limited budget. CMA complemented the Comcast partnerships with zoned web advertising focused on a home registration address. This technique allowed CMA to target potential fans at home and at work and also through mobile devices.

Radio Disney activation provided a great on-air platform to reach moms and kids, who are often the drivers of entertainment and activity selection in a household. But partnering with Radio Disney delivered much more. Radio Disney entertained Storm attendees with themed pre-game and halftime activities at three home games at Key Arena. Radio Disney also distributed Seattle Storm ticket certificates at all of their community events. As Storm ambassadors, Radio Disney representatives helped drive an entire audience of new fans to the WNBA experience.

Finally, paid Facebook ads grew the Storm’s social media fan base, drawing targeted users to visit the Storm’s website, purchase tickets, and follow the team’s fan page. Advertising in Facebook’s news feed can be an ideal solution for promoting brand awareness and engaging interested parties in a casual atmosphere.

As the next step in the Seattle Storm’s media buying campaign, CMA is recommending the addition of pay-per-click advertising (PPC) and retargeting ads to diversify the digital advertising mix. These proven digital avenues would allow the Storm to reach even more new fans and maintain a connection with them throughout the season.

Creative Media Alliance is proud to provide media planning and media buying in Seattle for the Storm, delivering record ticket sales and growing a new fan base in Seattle’s suburban areas. The 2015 WNBA season tips-off in early-spring and this will be our fourth year working with the team. Check out the Storm at Key Arena and tell them CMA sent you!