Hasta La Creative!

Anomaly continues to “Spread Love” for Dick’s Sporting Goods, launching its “Holiday Hoops” extension of its “Gifts That Matter” campaign today on “Giving Tuesday.”

The ad follows on the heels of this heart-tugging spot and similarly explores how a basketball hoop can bring people together. This time around, though, Anomaly employs a “social experiment film” documenting people’s reactions when they leave basketball hoops, and a tray of balls with a “Play with me” sign, at various locations around Cleveland, Los Angeles and New York City. Naturally, the hoops caused strangers to bond over pick up games and Anomaly captured their genuine enthusiasm for the spot.

The video, however, is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Dick’s “Spread Love” charitable initiative. Cleveland Cavaliers star Kevin Love teamed up with The Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation today to surprise over 200 students at Scranton Elementary School in Cleveland with two new basketball hoops. The brand defines “Holiday Hoops” as a “‘pay it forward’ movement” which will ultimately donate over 100 hoops to organizations (all either schools or non-profits) across the country. Dick’s will select two such organizations every day, and then give them the chance to “pay if forward” to two of their own choosing, announcing the participants on social media with the #HolidayHoops hashtag.

“This holiday season, we wanted to enhance our “Gift That Matters” campaign by exploring the unique power a basketball hoop has to unite people and communities,” said Lauren Hobart, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Dick’s Sporting Goods and president of The Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation. “We believe that sports really do matter and Dick’s Foundation is thrilled to be able to provide 100 hoops to schools and communities across America.”

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After taking a different direction with their last SportsCenter spot, W+K New York and ESPN have gone back to what has made the “This Is SportsCenter” series so popular, employing humorous situations in the network’s Bristol HQ.

The spot, “Double Double,” stars Minnesota Timberwolves star Kevin Love as the guy responsible for pushing the coffee cart that keeps the SportsCenter crew caffeinated (UCLA mascot Joe Bruin can also be seen in the spot). This is an important job, because, as anchor Scott Van Pelt says, the SportsCenter crew relies “pretty heavily on the coffee cart” to keep going throughout the day. Love’s specialty is making “the best double-double,” which is two double espressos. Host Stan Verrett swears by Kevin’s double-doubles. In fact, he’s a little too fond of them. He requests another double-double from Love while he still has his two espressos in-hand, but Kevin says “I think maybe you should slow down.” Verrett continues to hound Love for more espresso as the spot goes on, with Kevin responsibly telling him he should just get through his show. At some point Love must have given in, and the results on Stan Verrett‘s show are pretty funny, as well as startling to co-host Neil Everett.

It’s a return to form for W+K, who play to their strengths with “Double Double.” The strategy seen here has worked for the “This Is Sportscenter” series in the past, and “Double Double” is the best SportsCenter spot in recent memory, with a good setup and comedic payoff thanks to Love and Verrett’s delivery. Let’s hope agency and brand continue sticking with what works in the future. Credits after the jump. continued…

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