Precision Linear Planning Unlocks Rare Oncology Reach in Premium Live Sports

Challenge

While video advertising in live sports offers a premium, high-attention environment for pharma, the significant investment raises an important question for rare disease brands: Can high-profile sports inventory efficiently reach clinically relevant patient audiences while driving meaningful engagement and brand response?

Strategy

CMI Media Group applied EMPOWER audience intelligence to identify live sports programming that over-indexed among diagnosed patients. The campaign prioritized premium sports inventory, including Monday Night Football and the MLB Playoffs, with performance validated through third-party outcome-based measurement to inform optimizations and future sports investment.

Results & Learnings

• Exposure to sports programming triggered strong real-time engagement signals within one hour of the ad airing, demonstrating strong intent signals
  • +1,023% branded search volume after NFL placements
  • +221% branded search volume after MLB placements
• Search behavior translated into meaningful site interaction, confirming that premium sports environments can drive measurable patient action
  • +974% increase in website clicks following NFL exposure
  • +204% increase in website clicks following MLB exposure
• An EDO outcome-based analysis showed live sports delivered the highest Media Engagement Rate Index across the entire linear schedule, indicating patients were most likely to search for the brand after seeing ads within sports programming
• Monday Night Football and the MLB Playoffs reached 700,000+ households, including ~4,200 diagnosed patients, a significant achievement given the rarity of the cancer and strict diagnostic criteria required for identification
• Live sports programming delivered exceptional engagement and measurable lower-funnel response, proving that premium sports environments can effectively drive action, even for highly specialized oncology audiences