Famed ad firm Wieden+Kennedy signed on with Fox Sports in early 2017 after decades running campaigns for ESPN (including the famed “This Is SportsCenter” spots), and they’ve made some interesting ads there, including a national “Now It’s A Game” campaign last year to promote the Thursday Night Football schedule and a 2017 “Every game is everything” college football campaign (which prompted complaints from Nebraska over a Children of the Corn-themed ad). Now, they’ve come out with a campaign for WWE Smackdown‘s move to Fox October 4. Here’s the first ad in the four-ad “We’re All Superstars” campaign, which was released Friday:
Here’s more from a Fox release:
WWE’s FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN debuts on FOX Friday, October 4, and FOX Sports is setting the stage with the “We’re All Superstars” campaign launch. The first spot “Superstars” premieres tonight, Friday, August 30, during FOX Sports’ new college football pregame show, BIG NOON KICKOFF, at 6:30 PM ET on FS1.
In the spot, a wide range of everyday and celebrity WWE fans embrace their inner “Superstar” – a grocery store clerk, a spelling bee winner, kids at the swimming pool and more. These fanatics imitate their favorite WWE Superstars’ signature moves, celebrating the WWE’s outsized influence on pop culture.
WWE Superstars “Stone Cold®” Steve Austin, John Cena®, Kofi Kingston, Becky Lynch, Ric Flair, Charlotte Flair, The Undertaker™ and The Rock® together with celebrities including Snoop Dogg, Gordon Ramsay and athletes from across the sports world are featured in the campaign.
…The campaign will consist of four total spots, with three fan-focused videos debuting in the coming weeks. The “We’re All Superstars” campaign was created by Wieden+Kennedy New York and FOX Sports.
We’ll see how the subsequent ads go, but this is certainly an interesting one, and it illustrates how much Fox cares about this WWE Smackdown move. They’ve previously used Wieden+Kennedy spots to showcase their signature NFL and college football properties, and now they’re doing so for WWE. And with more ads to come, this illustrates that WWE is a major priority for them.
