Hey folks. Welcome to Edition 98.

A quick piece of admin before we dive in. First Release passes for SEG3 London (June 18-19) end this Friday. Full ticket info below if you’re planning to join leaders from sports, entertainment, gaming & lifestyle at the show this summer.

This week’s Spotlight: Milano Cortina Olympics x Looney Tunes

The Milano Cortina Winter Games proved that the Olympics remain the ultimate "Mass Moment," but Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) stole the show by leveraging an IP with sport in its DNA: Looney Tunes. We dive into how.

Plus Speed Reads of:

Let’s get into it ⤵️

I can’t be the only one with a newfound love for Curling, right? The drama with the Canadian team had me invested.

That’s the gift of the Winter Olympics. It gives niche sports access to global audiences and the opportunity to capture their attention, build interest, and hopefully inspire the next generation of elite athletes (or casual participants) to put on skis, boards, or skates.

But with the slopes now closed and attention turning elsewhere, who made the most of the Olympics “macro moment”, and how?

Well, despite WBD’s role in delivering record audiences across free-to-air channels alongside the EBU, it’s actually their activation of Bugs Bunny and friends that caught my eye.

The Olympics is still one of the last few remaining mass moments. It has enough weight culturally that it can command attention from all demographics, geographies, and generations.

For those of you who read Edition 80, you will know “Mass Moments” happen when you combine five key drivers - and the Olympics has the full-house:

And by hitting those five pillars, an event like the Olympics transforms into a mass moment, winning over a disproportionate share of fan time.

And with that attention comes partners looking to integrate products and tell their stories. And so…

How can you make the most of such a big moment in the calendar and use it to strengthen the story around one of your biggest franchises?

For WBD, that meant leading with an IP that already had sport in its DNA - Looney Tunes.

Long before the Games, Bugs Bunny & co. were sharing the court with a certain Michael Jordan in Space Jam - a film that became a cultural phenomenon, and cemented Looney Tunes and the characters’ place in sports culture ad infinitum.

Building on this history, WBD were very deliberate in how they created their presence in the mountains and online, combining a mixture of life, product, and digital experiences to be visible to fans across all realities. This included:

Life: A crashing installation in Piazza XXV Aprile & participation in the torch relay.

Product: An exclusive range of licensed merch - including the Burton x Looney Tunes x Snoop Dogg snowboard drop, which sold out in just 2 minutes.

Digital: The launch of dedicated shows like Sports Talk with Bugs Bunny, Sports Made Simple, a livestream and the daily Watch Party - all embedded directly into free-to-air coverage, or through formats designed for platforms like YouTube.

As we covered in Edition #75, the real multiplier takes place when you can connect all those touchpoints - and given their strong presence, wherever fans were watching, buying, experiencing, or scrolling, Looney Tunes was there.

I think there are three simple reasons this crossover worked so well:

Firstly, sport is in the Looney Tunes DNA. It wasn’t a stretch of the story for the IP to be alongside the Olympic rings. This made the partnership and extension more of a return to home territory than a ‘why are they here?’.

→ Tip: Be deliberate about where your brand shows up. Expanding your IP only works when the narrative fits, and you add something your partner can’t deliver to fans alone.

Secondly, the IOC has been undergoing digital transformation. As those of you who joined us at SEG3 London 2024 will have heard from the IOC’s Head of Marketing Strategy, Jason Steele, this transformation means they are in a much stronger position to meaningfully integrate partners into physical and digital experiences.

→ Tip: Digital transformation seems laborious - but it’s a necessity to maintain relevance and revenue. As brands from outside sport raise the bar on data, personalisation and performance, sports has to modernise its infrastructure and practices to be able to continue delivering (measurable) value to their commercial partners.

Lastly, the products were fun, unique, and limited in availability. Any drop selling out in 2 minutes isn’t just luck - it’s the right combination of a premium manufacturer that audiences trust, talent that gives it more cultural sway, and an IP that fans have a connection to. This combo turns it from just a merch drop into a collectible.

→ Steal this: Whilst it’s a tale as old as time, merch is still a great way to tell stories. Scarcity mixed with the right product and talent and/or brand crossover, and you have a formula that still delivers.

But as we now head towards LA28 - and what is likely to be the most commercial Games in history - this won’t be the last time we see entertainment & gaming IP woven into sports’ biggest moments.

And the real winners of that convergence will be those who know where their IP can show up with authority, are creative enough to use it to elevate the fan experience and story, and have the infrastructure in place so they can guide fans from every physical and digital touchpoint back to their core ecosystem.

If you’re looking to expand your franchise into new corners of culture - and want to see how some of the world’s most established IP are approaching cross-industry collaboration - explore the two-day program for SEG3 London, where we’ll be unpacking the strategies driving innovation and growth.

The broadcaster’s new strategic division leverages expertise from hit series “We Are Coy Every Day” which amassed over 2.6 billion views, to offer full-scale marketing and IP development solutions.

Nearly 90% of Nippon TV’s content is fully owned IP. This gives them flexibility and leverage to be able to test out new formats and platforms, and see if their IP resonates with audiences in these new arenas.

And with vertical dramas becoming the hot new obsession for producers and brands alike (think P&G’s 50 episodes), having first-hand experience will make it easier for brands looking to integrate with Nippon TV’s preexisting IP, or collaborate to develop their own short-form storytelling.

India’s popular streaming service has a catalogue of over 300,000 hours of programming in 19 languages from a broadcast network of over 100 channels, original, and licensed content.

Discovery is the biggest challenge for subscribers within a catalogue as large as JioHotstar’s.

By making that process conversational, subscribers will be training the model on their preferences, which can help it deliver more personalised recommendations, which can help to improve retention (at least theoretically!). The multi-lingual model should also bridge cultural gaps in entertainment, offering wider distribution for its titles.

The other knock-on effect of improved understanding of subscriber preferences is improved targeting for advertising.

Could this kind of AI integration eventually grow into a bona fide retention and targeting tool?

Working on anything cool, or have a press release you would like us to cover? Send it in for the chance for it to be covered in next week’s edition!

That’s all for now, everyone - thanks again for reading the latest edition of The SEG3 Report. If you found it of interest, please do consider sharing with a colleague or friend who’d enjoy it too!