‘This Is SportsCenter’ nets Lions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkJednDFJGA

Recently in Cannes, France at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, ESPN’s iconic This is SportsCenter (TISC) campaign was awarded three Bronze Lions for three recent spots.

The festival is the world’s biggest celebration of creativity in communications. More than 24,000 entries from all over the world are showcased and judged.

Winners receive the highly coveted Lion trophy.

The winning spots were Spy, featuring NHL star Alex Ovechkin as an ESPN employee and undercover agent (see above); Copier,which spotlights Major League Soccer standout Landon Donovan as he is issued several fouls by a copy machine (see below); and Octagon with mixed martial artist George St. Pierre in his very special cubicle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5fYJcdEeiM

See the St. Pierre ad after the jump.

The Bronze Lions are only the most recent in a long line of awards the campaign has won since its launch in 1994.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SFygdPVFHo

The reach of the campaign is not limited to United States’ borders, either.

Said Michael Morrison, Vice President and GM, ESPN Asia Pacific: “Few things capture the DNA of ESPN better then these spots. In traveling many places, I receive more comments about This is SportsCenter than almost anything else.”

Weiden+Kennedy has been ESPN’s creative agency since the campaign began.

Seth Ader, Senior Director of Sports Marketing who has worked on TISC since 2006 said, “This is SportsCenter truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

“Even after 17 years, fans still love it and athletes still want to be in it. With all of the activity on campus in Bristol, it’s fertile ground to generate new ideas for the campaign year round. It’s a great case of art imitating life.”