ESPN and TCL profile Southeast Asia athletes in content series

ESPN and TCL have signed a new ad sales partnership that includes a four-part video series called ‘Inspiring Bonding Moments’ that profiles athletes in Southeast Asia.

This is TCL’s first association with sporting content. The TV manufacturer sees value in harnessing the emotion of sports to tell stories of how technology is bringing people together.

Marc Mallett, ESPN’s director of sales for Asia Pacific, told Campaign Asia-Pacific: “TCL’s name stands for ‘The Creative Life’ and they believe in a world where we see more and more people distracted. Technology can still be used to help people create bonding moments.”

TCL approached ESPN to showcase its brand values to consumers.

The series seeks to share untold stories in sport from Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. The first video focuses on Philippines-born football player Simone Rota and his journey back to the country to seek his biological parents.

According to Ranjit Gopi, director and head of international marketing, TCL Multimedia, technology is being blamed for creating distance in human relationships. “TCL decided this core insight was critical to differentiate TCL versus most technology brands that simply focus on the young and narcissistic interests.”

ESPN said the commercial expectations from the content series are not near-term. “The idea is to shed light on powerful sport stories across Southeast Asia, bring them to fans and establish TCL as the company that connects people through their technology.”

This campaign will utilise ESPN’s social-media presence to the create high impact digital marketing assets from ESPN CreativeWorks, ESPN’s own in-house creative agency.