new work from Dallas indie agency Poke The Bear and GOBOWLING, the national marketing arm of the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America (BPAA), that just launched over the weekend on 12/27 during the GOBOWLING Military Bowl game, “Don’t Go Boring, GO BOWLING.”
The campaign is based on one sticky, hard truth – you can suck at bowling and still be awesome at bowling – and is a fun reminder of why people love the sport in the first place. The sounds. The look. The counter-culture energy. That let-yourself-go escape hatch that 90% of casual bowlers agree is what makes bowling awesome.
But you’ll notice in the spot – no offer. No copy points. No URLs. No location tags. Not even a tagline. The only call-to-action is the brand name itself.
Shot in Texas, the production leaned hard into craft to do the “awesomeness of bowling” justice. The team even brought in a professional bowling coach to ensure perfect strikes on camera, who promptly cracked under pressure, taking nearly 20 tries to land one. (Turns out it’s harder when everyone’s watching.) To capture the moment authentically, the crew ran two cameras continuously and mounted a GoPro inside the pinsetter to catch a strike from inside the machine itself.
The campaign debuted during The GOBOWLING Military Bowl on 12/27 and rolls out across TV, print, digital, and social—proving that sometimes the boldest move a brand can make is trusting a simple truth and getting out of its own way. Additional major media placements across NASCAR and other sports and entertainment landmark events will run throughout the year.
