Tournament brackets have always been an integral part of the March Madness experience. It used to be that the only bracket we focused on was for NCAA basketball.  But today, brands want in on the action, so they create brand-centered brackets that aim to capitalize on our excitement for the perennial basketball tournament.

And these brackets target different audiences, particularly along gender lines.  So I’ve provided some examples of male-targeted and female-targeted brackets.  Obviously members of both sexes could be interested in all of these brackets, so these targets aren’t hard and fast.  But I think it’s fairly easy to identify the core audiences of the following brackets along gender lines.  Let’s take a look.

Brackets Targeting Men
Different brands piggy back differently based on the audience they’re targeting.  Here are some examples of brands trying to reach the tournament’s young male audience.

The biggest one I’ve encountered this year is the “Greatest Bracket Ever,” brought to us by Sports Illustrated and Miller Lite.  It’s a tournament bracket that pits some of the SI's most iconic Swimsuit Issue photos against each other.  Swimsuit issue fans can visit the site and vote on each photo match-up until one is voted the champion on Friday, March 12th.

A strikingly similar bracket comes to us from Captain Morgan and Spike-- The Captain Bracketmaster Challenge.  Captain Morgan bar girls, known as “Morganettes,” are placed into a bracket seeking online votes based on a photo and a few pieces of personal information.  The girl who receives the most votes is crowned “Ultimate Morganette,” and voters are entered into a drawing for prizes. 

The Greatest Bracket Ever and Captain Bracketmaster Challenge clearly target the NCAA tournament’s core fanbase of male sports fans.  There’s obviously excitement leading up to the tournament, so these brands are making themselves part of that.  And for sponsor brands like Miller Lite and Captain Morgan, there’s a clear advantage in getting your name into the minds of the fanbase immediately prior to the tournament, since alcohol consumption is so often an integral part of the sports-watching experience.  While the idea behind these brackets (looking at photos of sexy ladies) is neither original nor thought-provoking, it’s no doubt an effective way to attract the target audience.

But like I said, it’s unoriginal and it makes the whole brand bracket concept feel overdone.  In the coming years, I foresee a proliferation of “rating the hot chicks” brackets.  But in most cases, they won’t provide much brand engagement, and they won’t break through the clutter into original territory that will make people take notice.

Brackets Targeting Women
Here are some examples that use the tournament bracket model and target a more female audience.

Take, for example, Celebrity March Mayhem from entertainment news website Fafarazzi.com.  Sixty-four top-of-mind celebrities are placed into a bracket.  Celebrities earn points by getting publicity during the time period of their match-up, and whoever gets the most points progresses to the next round.  Site users fill out their brackets predicting which celebrities will get the most press.

Crate & Barrel’s “Ultimate Wedding Contest” isn’t actually a tournament bracket, but I think it should’ve been.  Engaged couples post a photo and some information about their relationship in an attempt to earn online votes and win a $100,000 dream wedding from Crate & Barrel.  As it stands, public voting only  selects the top 50 couples, and then Crate & Barrel’s team determines winners after that.  But I think a full bracket for public voting would’ve been a good way to go.

Bracket Targeting Both Sexes
Here’s an example that definitely reaches young men, but includes women too.  March Music Madness is a tournament of band popularity hosted by Chicago's alternative rock radio station Q101.  The likes of Foo Fighters, Incubus, Linkin Park, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Tool and Weezer are pitted against each other throughout March.  During each match-up, listeners vote via text message for the band they prefer.  At the end of the tournament, Chicago has chosen its favorite alternative rock band.  Previous winners include Incubus and Nine Inch Nails.

The audience for March Music Madness probably skews male, but the activity of voting for one’s favorite bands is decidedly more universal than voting on photos of sexy women.  Plus Q101 gets very clear feedback on how frequently to play certain bands based on their popularity with listeners.

The Ultimate Bracket
In my opinion, the big downfall of all these brand-centered brackets is that they don’t attempt to relate back to the NCAA tournament.  They’re just brand brackets that happen around the time of March Madness.

I think the ultimate brand bracket would find a way to engage everyone with the brand during the games.  If your brand can get the sports fans and non-sports fans together to follow the games, that’s a huge win.

So, how could that be done?  Maybe something related to scores, where if a game’s final point total exceeds some number (130, for example) the brand will do something interesting.  Or maybe a brand like Turtle Wax supports a team with a turtle mascot like the University of Maryland Terrapins.  And every game the Terrapins win in the tournament means prizes for users who register on the Turtle Wax website. 

The branded bracket is definitely not new, but it’s not quite dead yet.  As it gets more popular (and more riddled with “rate the hot chicks” voting) brands will need big-idea brackets to get noticed.

What Do You Think?
What brand brackets do you think are noteworthy?  What’s a brand bracket idea you’d like to see?  Please comment below.