Sometimes you have to go with your gut, even if it means defying convention.

Ellis Park (Henderson, KY), ranked 6th for best wagering by the Horseplayers Association of North America, recently selected Keller Crescent Advertising to promote its 87th season of thoroughbred horse racing.

Serious local horseplayers need little or no encouragement to show up on race day. If the horses are running, the purses attractive, a huge percentage of them will be there. Targeting this loyal group is not an efficient way to spend.

To boost attendance in 2010, Ellis Park and Keller Crescent Advertising developed a marketing strategy to attract a more diverse audience — entire families — by offering a series of special events including trick riders, camel and ostrich races, and giveaways, much of which are part of a conventional marketing program.

Where Keller Crescent Advertising has departed from the norm is in its Creative.

How so?

Reaching back into history, the agency focused on the way horses and riders kept families together over the years. The Pony Express, for example, helped families (immediate and extended) stay in touch even when hundreds of miles of geography separated them.

So, too, did Atlantic City’s “Diving Horses,” who attracted hundreds of thousands of families over the years (1920 - 1978) to a spectacle in which horses would leap from a 60-foot platform into the sea below.

This year, electronic advertising for Ellis Park takes the form of storytelling, splitting the message between horses/riders — then and now — and how Ellis Park plays a huge role in fostering quality family time.

Given the subject matter and the story quality required only one actor was ever considered for the voiceover and radio: Sam Elliott, an A-list actor and Hollywood icon famed for a throaty delivery and his gruff portrayal of Virgil Earp in Tombstone (1993) in which he starred with Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer.

Although Keller Crescent’s production budget was limited, we aggressively pursued Elliott holding our collective breath as contract negotiations progressed. Fortunately, the actor liked the scripts well enough to sign on, which in itself is flattering since he tends to limit his “commercial” exposure.

“The medium is the message” according to the late-Marshall McLuhan, an expert in media analysis, who viewed electronic media as extensions of the nervous system, a direct link to the human psyche. Handle it right, tap into positive emotions, and you’re halfway home.

By partnering Sam Elliott with the story-telling quality of the message, thousands of local families now fill the seats at Ellis Park every race day.

Tags: advertising, marketing, tv, work

This entry was posted on Friday, July 9th, 2010 at 2:24 pm and is filed under blog, new work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.