FanDuel puts sports fans in the action, by making every moment more. And with an estimated fifty million people expected to place a bet on the Super Bowl, FanDuel – America's Number #1 Sportsbook – couldn't afford to waste the opportunity with just another commercial for their first ever Super Bowl commercial.

Introducing the FanDuel Kick of Destiny – a first-of-its-kind event within the Super Bowl itself. Rob Gronkowski, a retired tight end kicking a field goal, live during the Super Bowl with $10,000,000 on the line.

The fully integrated campaign engaged fans throughout the NFL playoffs with commercials that built excitement for the live event. Out-of-home around the country drew attention to the Kick of Destiny and the prize winnings. And in Phoenix, the Kick for Credit allowed people to attempt the kick themselves, and take a photo with a marble bust of Rob Gronkowski’s foot.

The FanDuel Kick of Destiny was a live, unscripted event within the Super Bowl itself – not just another thirty-second spot. Rob “Gronk” Gronkowski, former NFL legend and greatest tight-end of all time, would attempt to kick a field goal (something he’d never done before) with the chance to win FanDuel customers $10,000,000 – live during the third quarter of the Super Bowl.

Rather than create a traditional Super Bowl teaser with limited shelf life and audience, we created a campaign that lasted the six weeks of the NFL playoffs – bringing massive numbers of new users to the FanDuel platform, while teasing the live kick itself.

The ambition—to create something that felt like it moved the category past just promotional offers, instill a belief that brand work could resonate with their consumers, while potentially establishing a platform that can be repeated solely by FanDuel for years to

Sports betting is all about live sports, but no brand has successfully been able to capture the true feeling of winning and losing a bet in their marketing efforts. We wanted to prime Everyday Sports Fans to bet on the NFL postseason with us by showing how FanDuel can surround every moment of the sport they already know and love with even more meaning and emotion. Our approach: To unite America around the same bet and get fans to experience how FanDuel “makes every moment” more collectively.

Our campaign was two incredibly different broadcast productions.

The first part of the campaign had the look and feel of a traditional commercial production. We shot in a stadium to give the true scale associated with professional football. We developed characters, wardrobe and props. And while the timeline was incredibly condensed (we shot in mid-December and were on air the first week of January), our partners made everything look incredible.

But the live production was an entirely different experience. A live production company joined the existing team to work directly with the FOX Broadcasting team, to test our satellite connection repeatedly, since we were in the middle of the desert, 12 miles from the Super Bowl. Our thirty seconds needed to be precise – there was no figuring it out in post, as all post needed to be applied live and timed perfectly. Which, in the end, it was.

In the third quarter of the Super Bowl, with the whole world watching, Gronk attempted the high stakes 25-yard kick for real - live and unscripted. Unfortunately for Gronk the 25-mile per hour winds took the ball wide left of the uprights. Fortunately, everyone still won – and FanDuel had their biggest day ever with an average of over 50,000 bets per minute, over 17 million Super Bowl bets placed and 70% market share of newly acquired users. FanDuel saw a 10% increase in brand awareness year over year, and all-in-all the Kick of Destiny garnered 14 billion impressions.

The FanDuel Kick of Destiny was a category-defining campaign that took a big risk and succeeded by putting FanDuel at the center of sports and culture.