Next to the Super Bowl, March Madness is one of the biggest annual sporting events, where brands can reach a diverse, highly-engaged audience, but at a much lower cost. This year, the NCAA tournament viewership reached all time highs, and the sheer volume of consumers playing along in March Madness brackets is a testament to its engagement power. Accordingly, the widespread appeal has opened new avenues for brands to reach consumers.
To help marketers better understand the March Madness advertising play, we asked DISQO’s audience about their experiences. We uncovered which audiences are most engaged, how consumers say they are watching the games, and how the event’s signature bracket impacts consumer attitudes and behaviors. Leveraging the DISQO CX platform, we surveyed 30,849 consumers from March 11 to 13, 2023. Read on for key findings.
In many circles, sports is perceptively relegated to a boys club, so we first examined how that theory stacks up. We found that it holds fairly true, with males making up 67% of self-reported tournament watchers in our audience. However, with an audience of this scale, it’s worth noting that females (33%) should not be overlooked when developing tournament-related content. The gender makeup of bracket creators nets about the same (70% male vs. 30% female).
When it comes to generational differences, Gen X is the most leaned in, comprising 32% of the people who said they watched the tournament, with Millennials close behind at 31%, Boomers at 22%, and Gen Z at 13%.
Interestingly, Gen Z’s engagement rises in bracket creation (21%), neck-in-neck with Gen X (20%) and Millennials (24%), and far above Boomers (13%).
March Madness’ iconic brackets extend far beyond tournament watchers, with many people participating, even with limited knowledge of basketball or team records. In fact, ESPN’s 2023 “Go with your gut” campaign leaned hard into the concept of creating brackets based on “vibes” vs. basketball knowledge. With that in mind, we looked at the power of the bracket system to draw in consumers who were not college basketball fans.
First, when we fielded our study, 20% of respondents overall had already created, or planned to create, a bracket. Of those who planned to watch the games, the number rose to nearly half (47%).
Forty-nine percent (49%) reported that they would only be watching to see how their bracket performed. Another 45% said they planned to watch the games regardless of their bracket, while 6% said that they don’t plan to watch any of the games, even with a bracket.
The power of playing a bracket is undeniable, and this gamification for consumers has transformed the advertising opportunity. It brings in a more diverse audience and engages consumers even more than the tournament itself.
We also asked how people planned to consume the madness. Of those who planned to watch, 64% reported that they typically watch via live TV, 29% watch via streaming services and 7% said they typically watched at least one game in person.
Females were more likely to watch via streaming services, while males were more likely to watch via live TV. When it comes to income, those of higher income (>$75,000) were more likely to watch via live TV or streaming services, while those of lower income (and who also were more likely to be students) were more likely to go to a game in-person.
There’s no doubt that March Madness offers a unique opportunity to engage consumers through branded placements, experiential activations, social media conversations and much more. But as sports advertising continues to grow, brands need unique and compelling strategies that engage the breadth of the audience.
The DISQO CX platform includes Ad Testing for optimizing March Madness creative and messaging, robust Audience solutions for deep insights into every customer, and the only at-scale solution for measuring brand and outcomes lift via a single source.
Check out DISQO’s 2023 Big Game Brand Lift report for more takeaways on how brands can score big with fans. Download it here.