Ahead of football season, The Athletic engaged Ways & Means to develop a growth campaign promoting its NFL, college football, and fantasy coverage. Felipe led the team in developing and pitching multiple creative routes, including the selected concept: In the Blink of an Eye.
Audience research showed that key growth segments spent more time with live sports broadcasts than with written journalism. The campaign turned that insight into its central idea: contrasting the spectacle of live sports with the reporting, analysis, and context that shape how subscribers experience every play.
The team drew from the Cincinnati Bengals’ 2021 season, led by Joe Burrow, and worked closely with The Athletic’s editorial teams to adapt headlines, infographics, tweets, subscriber comments, and podcast call-ins into the film’s storytelling. The result was a spot driven largely by on-screen graphics and sound design—an expression of the second-screen experience that defines contemporary sports fandom.
The team drew from the Cincinnati Bengals’ 2021 season, led by Joe Burrow, and worked closely with The Athletic’s editorial teams to adapt headlines, infographics, tweets, subscriber comments, and podcast call-ins into the film’s storytelling. The result was a spot driven largely by on-screen graphics and sound design—an expression of the second-screen experience that defines contemporary sports fandom.
Felipe and the Ways & Means team partnered with Forth+Back on a graphic language that extended The Athletic’s distinctive brand, Glue Factory Music on the soundscape, and director Kevin Phillips on the live-action shoot. Phillips’ high-speed cinematography supplied the energy and emotion beneath the graphic layers.
The campaign was later adapted for out-of-home placements in key markets and led to a subsequent basketball version for the start of the NBA season.
The campaign was later adapted for out-of-home placements in key markets and led to a subsequent basketball version for the start of the NBA season.