Kevin Bacon turns football pundit as EE celebrates BT Sport partnership with 'Breaking Sports News' bulletin ad
EE has unveiled an ad starring longtime ambassador Kevin Bacon to celebrate its content tie-up with BT Sport, marking the first time the brands have appeared in a campaign together since BT acquired the mobile operator earlier this year for £12.5bn.
Bacon takes on the role of sports pundit in the 'Breaking News' bulletin-style ad, designed to promote the fact that EE customers will now get six months free access to all BT sports programming.
The actor is joined by football stars including Rio Ferdinand, José Mourinho and Harry Redknapp for new multi-million pound 40-second spot, which sees Bacon and Ferdinand having their broadcast interrupted by the 'urgent news' of EE inking the BT deal.
In typical sports presenter style, Bacon quickly cuts to live commentary from some the biggest names in football, including Jürgen Klopp, Claudio Ranieri, Mourinho and Redknapp.
Some of the enthusiastic reactions were taken from real post-match interviews, including Klopp saying: “The best word I can say to describe this would be, boom."
BT hopes that the promotion will pull in more than 15 million mobile subscribers to the channel, some of which it will aim to retain with the option of paying £5 per month to hold on to the access.
The new deal will provide new and existing EE pay monthly customers with six month’s free access to all the live sporting action available on BT Sport channels, via the BT Sport app.
BT has said that the move is the "first of a series of benefits to be made available to EE customers now that EE is part of BT Group."
The supporting campaign, developed by Saatchi & Saatchi London, with buying from MEC, will run across print, OOH, retail and social media alongside a unique execution of the TV ad for digital. EE's YouTube series 'The Wembley Cup' is also returning to the network for a second year and will be used to target the YouTube audience with the BT Sport App offer.
"This is the one of our biggest integrated brand campaigns to date for one of our most exciting customer offers since we launched EE," said Max Taylor, managing of digital, comms and innovation, EE, adding: "We know how much our customers like watching content on the go - particularly sport - and this offer is a fantastic example of the added benefits our customers get now that we're part of BT Group."