Twitter, ESPN to Stream Bowl Game Replays via Tweets
Cable net partners with Ford in distribution deal
Twitter may or may not be a media company, but it’s sure making moves in that direction, positioning itself as a de facto media distributor.
The latest development is a partnership with ESPN and Ford that will stream instant replays of college football bowl games inside of tweets.
The partnership begins tomorrow and runs through Jan. 15, a week after the college football bowl season ends. Throughout games, the @ESPNCFB account will tweet out top plays with pre-roll clips promoting the Ford Fusion that Twitter users will be able to view on desktop, tablets or smartphones. ESPN will determine the length of the clips, but a Twitter representative said they would not run longer than 30 seconds and each will feature one five- to eight-second pre-roll from Ford.
ESPN and Ford also will run Promoted Tweets to expand the content’s reach, so that should Alabama intercept Notre Dame QB Everett Gholston during the BCS title game to seal the championship, the brands could conceivably promote the play in front of Twitter users in Alabama, those who follow former Alabama QB A.J. McCarron or those who incessantly tweet “Roll Tide.” ESPN and Ford could also take advantage of the newly launched ad-matching option that surfaces Promoted Tweets alongside searches for trending topics.
ESPN and Ford are using Twitter’s Cards technology that was introduced earlier this year and expands tweets to include linked photos, videos or article headlines/blurbs. It also happens to be the same technology that Instagram cut ties with last week and Pinterest has integrated.
Adweek reported in July that Twitter was in discussions with network execs and advertisers to stream video inside of tweets.
