Young & Rubicam announced today that an original program they created for client Celular South will run nationally on Fox Sports Net beginning April 12.
“Head to Head” is a docu-drama that follows the story of two rival Mississippi high school football teams, coaches, schools, communities (er, everyone) as the teams battle through the 2009 season. The first sort-of-similar execution that comes to mind is TBWA’s Grandy winning Gatorade work, “Replay“, which pitted two rival high school teams against one another years after they’d graduated.
Here’s an interesting tidbit — Y&R originally developed this branded entertainment campaign for Cellular South and ran it last fall in southern markets. It drew millions of viewers, according to the agency, and now it’s running on FSN because, well, there’s no drama like kids battling it out on a field where their fathers played. It’s Americana at its best, and it’s what half of the country spends Friday nights in fall doing. ‘Friday Night Lights’, eat your heart out. This is the real friggin deal.
It’s a great example of scalable content on TV.