With hundreds of student-athletes spread across dozens of teams — not to mention coaches, trainers, administrators, and other personnel — it’s rare that every member of a collegiate athletic department has the same event circled on their calendars.
For Trojans at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the Tommy Awards are the exception.
Somewhere between The ESPYs and “senior superlatives for student-athletes,” The Tommys represent an annual opportunity for USC to celebrate the best the Cardinal & Gold had to offer throughout the previous athletic year.
Senior Associate Athletic Director for Strategic Communications and Brand Advancement at USC Cody Worsham understood that each award — and the ceremony itself — provided his staff a chance to amplify the stories, achievements and voices of Trojan student-athletes.
Here’s how Worsham and Co. made the most of their moment in the moment, implementing content strategies and activating athletes in real-time on the biggest night of the year for the USC Trojans.
An award show simply isn’t an award show without a dramatic entrance. The USC athletic department turned simple ingress into a multitude of content activations by installing a red carpet, erecting step-and-repeats, and stationing creators at the entrance to the ceremony.
Student-Athletes hit their marks, showed off their fits, interviewed each other and otherwise had a handful of opportunities to participate in content capture before even reaching their seats in Bovard Auditorium.
Anyone who’s worked in sports social understands that “speed to feed” is paramount for success…getting content from point of capture to point of publish as quickly as possible is the goal.
On the night of The Tommy Awards, Worsham’s team was able to produce 1,250 assets in real-time, routing them directly to student-athletes as soon as they were captured, which resulted in hundreds of downloads and posts to social media channels throughout the event.
Prior to The Tommys, Worsham used Greenfly +Engage to collect user-generated content from USC student-athletes, coaches and staff. He asked them to submit videos sharing what they thought it meant to be a Trojan, and how they aim to embody the “FIGHT ON!” spirit.
They leveraged those submissions by playing them back in-venue during the ceremony to keep student-athletes engaged, add an emotive touch to the programming, and increase departmental representation and participation throughout the evening.
A simple high-resolution image of a student-athlete in front of a branded backdrop was never going to do The Tommys justice. So, Worsham and his team made sure to differentiate their content throughout the evening.
Peer-to-peer mini mic interviews on the red carpet. Emotional testimonial videos submitted by beloved coaches and star student-athletes. Photography capturing the reactions of winners and celebrating the moments unfolding on stage. Graphics announcing winners as their names were called.
And a clear, direct understanding of what to do with that content once it was produced…and where student-athletes could access it for their personal use immediately.
That’s how you make the most of every moment in the moment. That’s how you take an in-person event that used to be exclusively for and about student-athletes and turn it into a tent pole activation for the larger brand without compromising the integrity of the ceremony.
Bravo.
