The college football championship bowl game between Auburn and Oregon will be played Monday in Arizona and though the serious media coverage is sure to be intense – the trending topic on Twitter has been sponsored by the comedians at The Onion. Specifically by The Onion’s new sports video show Onion SportsDome, which will launch the next day as a prime time show on Comedy Central.
“Yes, Onion Sports Network and #SportsDome now own #BCS. Take that, Tostitos” is the text of the sponsored tweet that will sit on top of Twitter conversation about the game tomorrow. The Frito-Lay Tostitos brand corn chips are the official sponsor of the Bowl Championship Series. If it’s a social media world, the college football establishment may have just gotten upstaged.
Sponsor
In a profile of SportsDome, NPR’s Mike Pesca says the TV show will be “is not for the easily, moderately, or even rarely offended.” Baratunde Thurston, Director of Digital at The Onion, called the sponsored trend campaign “#Badass” on Twitter tonight.
Can the Onion do sports? For the show to launch with a promotion like this on Twitter bodes well. It also bodes well for the sense of humor in the Twitter advertising department.
When Twitter launched its sponsored trends advertising product in June, we called it a brave new type of advertising. Not every potential advertiser will feel comfortable calling attention to free-form Tweets that could say anything about them. Apparently if you don’t buy a trend about your organization or event, though, The Onion might buy it themselves.
Disclosure: This post’s author is an Oregon grad, but will be cheering for The Onion durring the big game.
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