Company: MELT, Atlanta, GA
Company Description: Founded by CEO and President Vince Thompson in 2000, MELT, LLC, is an Atlanta based fully-integrated sports and entertainment marketing agency offering clients advertising, original content development, digital, social media, event and experiential marketing, retail and consumer promotions, brand strategy and sports property evaluation and activation. Check us out at www.meltatl.com.
Nomination Category: Marketing Organization / Professional Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Marketing or Advertising Agency of the Year

Nomination Title: MELT, LLC

Tell the story about what this nominated consultancy or agency has achieved since January 1, 2014 (up to 650 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms.

MELT is a full-service, integrated sports and entertainment marketing agency with over a decade's worth of experience navigating the athletic and entertainment space on behalf of major brands. MELT earns top recognition due to our successful event activations, our work in the sponsorship space and the continued success of fully integrated 360 degree campaigns.

Fall of 2014 was the second year that MELT partnered with client, The Coca-Cola Company, to execute their sponsorship of ESPN College GameDay. Last year, our on-campus activations became a valuable asset to students, fans and the broadcast, but this year took the brand presences to the next level. Our objectives were to increase awareness, participation and success. During the 16-week national experiential tour, we worked to integrate all campus activations into the overall “Countdown to Zero” campaign as well as further drive the importance of Section Zero into the broadcast. Section Zero was created to enable the most passionate fans to enjoy everything about ESPN College GameDay. It gives fans the best seat in the house, showcases and rewards local tradition, integrates talent and creates new and incremental content for the ESPN broadcast. Coca-Cola Zero did not want to only be a sponsor of the GameDay; they wanted to develop a strategy where fans could meaningfully engage with the brand, creating an experience physically on campus as well as socially and visually through the broadcast.

In 2003, MELT created the entertainment strategy for The Coca-Cola Company and the NCAA™ Men’s Final Four and remains lead producer today. This April, we executed our 13th Final Four in Indianapolis where we produced and activated all of Coca-Cola’s events. On behalf of The Coca-Cola Company, MELT produced and executed The Coke Zero Countdown, Final Four Fan Fest with Coke Zero and POWERADE, Final Four Dribble, Stalking Vending and Street Teams program, A Simon Mall Activation, Youth Clinics and Exit Sampling. The Coke Zero Countdown takes place the Saturday of Final Four weekend during the March Madness Music Festival. We also activated the Coca-Cola Zero and POWERADE footprints throughout the 3 festival days. The POWERADE and Coca-Cola Zero footprints included various activities, sampling and entertainment for festival goers. Separately, our Coca-Cola and POWERADE Fan Fest footprint featured a full basketball combine, autograph sessions, a DJ, Pop-A-shot tournaments, a social-box photo activation, digital video boards, sampling and much more! We had a record number of samples given out and the line to get in was wrapped around each day. This year we introduced a few new programs including Stalking Vending and Street Teams. Stalking Vending was an awesome concept creating lots of laughter and a few screams. This year we utilized new technology elements and proved that our key learning’s from previous years were great factors in improvement all around. Overall, this years Final Four was our largest and most successful.

Another successful activation in 2014 was the activation of Gildan’s sponsorship of the ESPN New Mexico. For this, MELT created a 360 degree campaign that highlighted the bowl and Gildan apparel as Your Favorite Things. The campaign include event and experiential activation at the Charlesotn Classic Basketball Tournament, New Mexico Balloon Fiesta and the Gildan ESPN New Mexico bowl. In addition to the bowl game, we targeted events that we felt would reach our target audience and drive people to the bowl game in December. The on-site activations included on-site photo ops, instant win games and social media promotions to generate awareness and drive traffic to Gildan.com, which was one of the campaign objectives. In addition, we created an Instagram sweepstakes that gave away a trip to your favorite city. There was also a strong retail push driving sales and campaign awareness.

In addition, since January 1 2014, Melt has worked with SportsTrust, Jeff Foxworthy’s Grit Chips, State Farm, Kia, cConnects, The Chick Fil-A Bowl, SEC Network, Hostess, Anheuser Busch, ESPN and more.

In bullet-list form, briefly summarize up to ten (10) accomplishments of the nominated agency since the beginning of 2014 (up to 150 words).

- MELT produced and activated Coke Zero’s sponsorship of ESPN College GameDay for the second year in a row
- Produced and activated Coke Zero’s 12th and 13th NCAA Men’s Final Four including a CBS national TV special and Rihanna concert
- Worked with ESPN owned and operated property, The Gildan New Meixco Bowl, to bring Gildan’s vision to life
- Produced and executed the 2014 NCAA Men’s Final Four Salute in Dallas featuring President George Bush and Jim Nantz
- Won multiple national industry awards including 2014 Cynopsis Sports activation of the year awards for the ESPN College GameDay activation work
- Started an NFL endorsement division on behalf of the SportsTrust Agency and their 60 NFL players
- Named Michelle Grech as President of MELT, LLC
- MELT CEO Vince Thompson was named The American Diabetes Association Father of the Year and was a finalist for Cynopsis Social Cause Marketer of the Year