The Thunder Play Mascot Pranks on Employees...

Are you looking to create original video board vignettes? Are you looking for new ways to integrate team employees and mascots in-game?

The Oklahoma City Thunder recently featured an excellent video board vignette during one of their home games that involved their mascot, Rumble, waking up the team's employees as they headed into work during the early morning hours. The clip does a great job providing fans a humorous, behind-the-scenes look at some of the mascot's antics outside outside of the arena and enables team employees to enjoy some humor of their own.

What's unique about this piece is that the team finds a way to incorporate its employees in the fan entertainment, something that is not too common in the sports landscape. The vignette serves as a nice way to reward/humor all of the individuals behind the scenes who are working long hours to maximize the team's ticket sales, sponsorship revenue, community relations efforts, fan entertainment, etc.

Check out the creative vignette piece, entitled "Wake Up with Rumble the Bison" here.

A special thanks to David Yu of the University of Oregon Warsaw Sports Marketing Center for his insights and contributions to this column!

Nike's Showcases New "V for Victory" Apparel Campaign...

Are you looking to create a branding campaign that is built on the energy and emotion of the game? Are you looking for new ways to leverage athlete endorsers?

Nike recently launched "V for Victory", a colorful apparel campaign that leverages some of the world's best athletes to promote Nike's remixed line of Chevron Eugene jackets, one of the brand's most iconic pieces of apparel.

The "V for Victory" campaign does a tremendous job captivating what the emotion of victory (which symbolizes the design of the apparel) means to some of the world's best football (soccer) players (Cesc Fabregas, Adriano, Andrei Arshavin, and Didier Drogba), rugby players, and tennis sensation Rafeal Nadal.

What makes this campaign so special is that Nike has given new meaning to the peace symbol (which is seamlessly integrated into the "V for Victory" campaign). Now, when young soccer fans see one of Nike's athlete endorsers displaying the peace sign during competition (which happens frequently), there is a chance that they will begin to view the act as a way their favorite athletes are saluting Nike as a brand.

Nike is promoting the campaign through a captivating viral piece that provides a behind-the-scenes look at the players' photo shoot and a eye-popping billboard campaign in high-traffic areas throughout Europe. Check out Nike's campaign tactics below: