Phillips 66® celebrated 36 years as the Title Sponsor of the Phillips 66® BIG 12 Basketball Championships March 7-16 in Kansas City. This year Phillips 66® brought the GO throughout the tournaments in new, exciting, and creative ways to help engage fans and build consumer loyalty.
This year, we enhanced the Phillips 66® brand presence by finding new, authentic opportunities to connect with fuel consumers while showcasing our GO GO GOTM brand campaign. To build awareness and consumer loyalty, our expanded brand presence at the BIG 12 Basketball Championships included:
New Branding: Phillips 66® took over Kansas City during the 2024 Phillips 66 Big 12 Basketball Championships! Our branding was front and center, from the Kansas City International Airport to the streets of downtown and the Loews Hotel to the T-Mobile Center. Our paid media plan included digital out-of-home boards, wild postings, digital banner ads, radio, live remotes and paid social, building awareness of our title sponsorship and promoting the tournament-specific 12cpg discount in the Fuel ForwardTM App.
We also showed up big at the Loews Hotel with GO GO GOTM bollard covers, shield logos on the check-in desks, table clings, napkins with a Fuel ForwardTM App QR code, branded glassware and elevator doors and a full takeover of the coffee shop, including window signage and a signature drink – the GO GO GOTM triple shot Americano to really fuel the fans’ day! Once fans made their way to the T-Mobile Center, they couldn’t miss our animated LED ribbon boards, in-game PA reads and prominent shield logos on the court.
Social Media: To support the Phillips 66 Big 12 Basketball Championships, we leveraged our @Phillips66Gas social channels to highlight the brand leading up to and throughout the tournament. Key highlights included our Big 12 Social Giveaway, where 43 winners were selected to win a variety of prizes, including game tickets, $66 digital cards in the Fuel ForwardTM App, behind-the-scenes locker room tours at T-Mobile Center and Big 12 Conference merchandise. We also leveraged collaborative posts with the Big 12 Conference and Charlie Hustle, a local clothing brand in Kansas City, to expand our reach for our giveaway entries. Real-time coverage included seven 12-second recap videos over nine days highlighting our concourse and Fan Fest activations, on-court promotions featuring our “Ultimate Shot” winners and campaign branding throughout Kansas City.
View the Posts:
Social Giveaway Launch
Charlie Hustle Collaboration
12-Second Recap
On the Ground Ticket Giveaway
Big 12 Final Recap
Branded Activations: Phillips 66 showed up BIG with our brand activations inside and outside the T-Mobile Center. Throughout the men’s and women’s tournaments, we engaged with roughly 10,000 fans, provided more than 3,800 fans additional Fuel ForwardTM App savings and opted in nearly 1,300 fans to our email marketing efforts.
Outside of the arena, we owned a 1,500-square-foot space at Fan Fest, where we showcased our “GO GO GO” branding and engaged with fans through our GO CARD activation. Fans had the opportunity to pose for their personalized GO CARD, which they received instantly with a promo code to save on fuel purchases with the Fuel ForwardTM App.
Additionally, fans took photos with the Phillips 66 Big 12 Basketball Championship trophy in front of our branded LED GO wall and our eye-catching 26-foot GO GO GOTM welcome display! The fun continued with our spin wheel, where fans won branded swag featuring our GO GO GOTM tagline.
We also educated fans on our Fuel ForwardTM App and the many ways to save on their fuel purchases. We gave away over 10,000 branded swag items and nearly $3,000 in digital fuel cards to fans who downloaded and created a Fuel ForwardTM App account. We also invited KickBack® and Synchrony to participate in Fan Fest again this year! They helped spread brand awareness, gave away several branded premium items and engaged with consumers. Once inside the arena, fans could participate in our Phillips 66 branded 360 photo booth, which showcased our title sponsorship! The videos they created were a hit, easy to share and kept our brand top of mind. After instantly receiving their digital 360 video to share online, fans also received a promo code to save even more with the Fuel ForwardTM App. This activation also resulted in fans receiving a personalized follow-up email reminding them of the savings we offered just for being in Kansas City during the tournament.
Men and Women’s On-Court Promotions: We engaged with fans over 26 games in nine days and entertained the entire arena with exciting, branded in-game promotions. We brought a few new ideas to the mix this year and kept some fan-favorite and proven promotions in the daily game scripts.
One of our new promotions added this year is called “GO GO GO Down the Row”, in which four rows in one section competed against each other by passing down a part of our new GO GO GOTM tagline. The first row that passed their oversized sign to the end of their section received a $25 card that showed them how to download the Fuel ForwardTM App and input their prize into their account. Each promotion had full-screen and ribbon board branding, and the mix of different promotions allowed for all the in-game features to stay fresh for fans throughout the entire tournament.
Fans participating in the “Musical Chairs” or “Around the World” promos competed for $250 or $500 digital gas cards in the Fuel ForwardTM App. Each participant in the “Ultimate Shot” promo had a chance at $6,600 in digital gas cards if they made a layup, free throw, 3-pointer and finally a half-court shot in 66 seconds. There must have been something in the water this year because, remarkably, seven out of the 10 people who participated hit the half-court shot for the full prize, which fired up the entire crowd each time.
Some of the winning half-court shots were even featured in the post-game highlights on broadcast and ESPN! Over the course of 26 games, we awarded fans $62,400 in instant digital gas cards, ensuring that many of these consumers will be loyal users of the Fuel ForwardTM App for a long time.
Big 12 Check Presentations – KC Parks Foundation and BIG 12 General Scholarship Fund: When it comes to the Big 12, Phillips 66 goes beyond basketball to leave a lasting impact on the Kansas City Community and future Big 12 athletes. This year, in partnership with KC Parks and Rec and the KC Parks Foundation, we donated $100,000 to update the playing courts and hoops at Parade Park and to install fencing to make it safer for all the future Big 12 athletes playing in Kansas City’s 18th and Vine District. The donation was recognized during half-time of the Men’s semifinals with a check presentation by Brian Mandell, Executive Vice President, Marketing and Commercial, to KC Parks Foundation Board Chair Beth Haden.
We also continued our tradition of making a $66,000 donation to the Big 12 General Scholarship Fund in support of current and future Big 12 athletes. This donation was also recognized with a check presentation by Rod Palmer, Vice President, US Marketing, to Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark.
BIG 12 Trophy Presentations: As Title Sponsor of the Phillips 66 Big 12 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships, President and CEO Mark Lashier had the privilege of presenting the championship trophies to the respective teams. It was an added bonus that he was able to present the men’s trophy to his very own Iowa State Cyclones!
We were thrilled to engage with fans and athletes at the Phillips 66 BIG 12 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Championships. Our commitment to sports sponsorships is rooted in their ability to engage vast audiences and cultivate fan loyalty. Our goal remains unwavering: to leverage sponsorships to help build consumer loyalty and drive traffic to your site(s).
