{"id":8730,"date":"2018-01-31T13:32:08","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T18:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.specialtyansweringservice.net\/?p=8730"},"modified":"2018-06-19T12:26:28","modified_gmt":"2018-06-19T16:26:28","slug":"the-sports-illustrated-football-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.specialtyansweringservice.net\/the-sports-illustrated-football-phone\/","title":{"rendered":"Pay Your Respects To The Sport’s Illustrated Football Phone"},"content":{"rendered":"

As an answering service<\/a>, we’re obviously way into phones and the technology behind how they work<\/a>. Since Super Bowl LII (go birds!) is coming up, we tried to see how we could incorporate phones with football. We thought about the technology that allows the quarterback to talk to the coach via his helmet<\/a>, although that didn’t lead us very far. We also looked into how the President calls the winning team<\/a> to congratulate them, and that was also a dead end. But then we stumbled upon something so magical it’s hard to believe it was even real – that is, the creation of the football phone.\u00a0 And like peanut butter meeting jelly for the first time, greatness was conceived.<\/p>\n

Where Did it Come From?<\/h2>\n

In the late 80\u2019s, magazine sales were tanking, which put the pressure on marketing agencies to come up with ideas on how to move more subscriptions. To spark sales, Sport’s Illustrated offered VHS tapes of sports bloopers as an incentive for new subscribers. This idea was marginally successful, but it was getting tough to fill up a tape with new material. There’s only so many times you could watch Jeff Francoeur misfire on the throw to first<\/a>. So, the SI marketing team went back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n

Sport’s Illustrated VHS Blooper Ad<\/h2>\n

And now for a John Slattery break.<\/p>\n