ESPN Build Excitement for the First College Football Playoff and National Championship

We kicked off the 2024 College Football season with the “There’s Never Been A Season Like This” campaign to usher fans into a new and brighter era: The age of the new expanded College Football Playoff.

Now, we continue the brand platform with work that elevates the stakes and the drama of the first ever 12-team playoff and the anticipation for the national championship game.

The new expanded College Football Playoff campaign celebrates the 2024 season and what the new playoff format means: more teams and more games, means more pressure and more stakes. There’s truly never been a playoff season like this or a national championship like this. With teams having to battle through the new College Football Playoff system, only one team will be able to say they’ve done something no other team in college football has ever done. The national championship campaign, titled “This One is Different”, perfectly captures this feeling.

“We promised that this was going to be a season like never before, and as the expanded 12-team playoff unveiled itself, the fan excitement was undeniable,” said Curtis Friends, vice president of Sports Marketing at ESPN. “Building off that feeling, we dialled up the pageantry and intensity in the creative campaign to speak to the energy and high stakes that is the College Football Playoff leading into the National Championship game."

In the College Football Playoff spot, we chose the song “Les Fleurs” by Minni Riperton, because it brings an unexpected twist but celebratory energy to match the spectacle of the playoff. To match that energy in the national championship spot, we focused on the visual effects working with the animation company, Elastic, who is known for their famous title sequences in popular shows such as “Game of Thrones.”

“Our College Football Playoff and National Championship campaigns are designed to amplify the dramatic ending of a new college football season, capturing the big, unpredictable, historical finish to a season that has truly lived up to being the greatest story ever played,” said Mike Behrends, creative director at Arts & Letters.

Check out the playoff spot here,

And national championship spot here.

The playoff spot began airing on November 18th and the National Championship spot goes live tonight after 7PM ET, ending on January 20th when the national championship game will be played. The spots are running on a mix of linear networks on ESPN and ABC, as well as digitally and off-channel placements.