Branded entertainment has exploded in popularity, appeal and ultimately business sense in the past couple years. It is one of, if not the most powerful way to engage an audience in the U.S.

Numerous brands want to answer this call, but very few are able to uncover the intersection of marketing and culture. Branded Entertainment is based on the passion points of consumers (sports, music, etc.), so finding that overlapping truth is what separates content people want to spend time with from that of traditional advertising.

Any restrictions and regulations that fall outside the standard practice of advertising (gaining approvals, rights, etc.) relate to age and/or health sensitive brands – like alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceuticals – and wouldn’t apply to this submission.

Since 2013, our task has been to bring the world’s sport to America’s network and generate mass appeal for English football.

Our biggest challenge?

Converting the die-hard American sports fan.

Capture their attention and get them talking about a sport they were, at best, indifferent to.

After all... "It's football...just not as you know it."

We enlisted the help of SNL legend Jason Sudeikis to play our clueless American coach, and so, Ted Lasso was born.

Our first spot captured the imagination of sports fans across the country.

• + 8.9M YouTube views

• Over 1B media impressions

• 32 million Americans watched the EPL

But, with the 2014 season fast approaching, it was time for an encore.

The people demanded the return of Ted Lasso, and so, with an audience of +8M already established, we set out for the impossible.

To make a sequel, equal to, if not better than the first.

So, how would we follow-up a massive hit with another blockbuster?

How would we establish this as a content series and continue to build upon what was already record setting success?

The answer – we had to bring Coach Lasso back home.

The entertainment value was sky-high as Coach remained oblivious to the game, which becomes all the more glaring as he’s no longer making a fool of himself in England, but in his own backyard!

Equally important, bringing Coach home allowed us to reflect what was happening in culture: how the country, even the casual sport fan, had fallen in love with the Premier League.

Within a single day, we surpassed 1.5M views.

And just like that, America was talking about Lasso, NBC and the EPL again. Resulting in more people watching the Premier League than ever before.

Success that continues to build to this day.

We implemented a teaser approach in order to activate the established audience.

So we had Tim Howard tweet out a selfie of himself and Ted Lasso. This instantly ignited conversation and anticipation within our following.

Then we released a faux press release on Facebook, outlining that NBC hired Coach Lasso, to further fuel the anticipation.

The final step before the film went live was engaging key media influencers across sports, culture and entertainment, in order to efficiently gain reach and maximize exposure of the sequel.

Then on the day the sequel went live, it took off like wildfire.

The effort was incredibly successful, as we delivered on the daunting challenge of establishing Coach Lasso as a content franchise and further building NBC’s Premier League audience.

Being able to expand into an army-like following that continues to travel and advocate not only for this character, but more importantly the way NBC is building the Premier League in America, produced record-setting success.

• Delivered the most watched Premier League game in U.S. history (1.3M audience) for the Manchester Derby on April 12, 2015

• Record setting opening weekend, with a 15% increase in viewership from the initial ‘13/’14 season

• Continued double digit viewership growth continues for ‘14/’15 season: +14% for the coveted age range of 25-54

• Within a single day, we had surpassed 1.5M views

The content expertly married two key elements: a character who portrayed the American ignorance for the sport, with a canvas that was authentic to the English Premier League (teams, players, etc.).

By bringing an American football coach to an EPL club, we were able to not only make light of the ignorance certain American sports fans had of the game, but we were able to pepper in some ‘edutainment’ around the sport and the league – such as basic rules, clubs, etc.

This allowed NBC to gain serious cred with soccer enthusiasts and more importantly, appeal – and ultimately bring in – an entirely new segment to the English Premier League fan base in America, the casual sports fan.