Exclusive: Sling TV’s Campaign Targets Those Irked at Paying for Channels They Don’t Watch

Sling TV looks slightly different this morning thanks to a new brand campaign, visual identity, and mnemonic with the creative slogan, “Sling lets you do that.”

Sling TV offers three subscription tiers, starting at $40 per month (for Sling Orange). Viewers can customize the lineup with genre-specific channels like sports, news, or lifestyle based on their interests, which has been an integral part of Sling TV since the platform launched in 2015. 

“We found that this message [of what Sling TV offers] doesn’t always come through as much as we wanted,” Gary Schanman, executive vice president and group president of video services at Sling TV parent EchoStar, told ADWEEK. “There’s a lot of competition in the space. We found that ‘Sling lets you do that’ is really simple. It ties to a lot of our tenets and our brands. It was a way to hopefully get above the fray and be able to create something compelling.”

In 30-second spots created by WorkInProgress and directed by The Pelorian Brothers, two protagonists find themselves in unexpected, alternate universes searching for a better TV provider, ultimately finding Sling TV. 

The new visual identity introduces a smoke and charcoal gray color to its palette, along with a glowing gradient frame, adding colors like orange, yellow and blue.

Sling TV also created a sonic strategy with an updated logo mnemonic, which, according to the company, is inspired by the joy of turning on and watching live TV (shown at the end of the ad).

But the company doesn’t call it a rebrand. Schanman referred to it as a “brand reclarification” to help customers understand what the service offers. 

The campaign’s theme is based on research the company conducted where it discovered that one of the biggest pain points viewers have is overpaying for programming they don’t watch. (The company wouldn’t share specific details of the research.) 

“The average household watches maybe just over one-dozen channels, but they pay for hundreds of channels that they don’t even watch with other TV providers,” Schanman said.

“Sling’s different because we give customers control over their entertainment experience,” he added. “We are approachable. We’re unexpected, but we also ensure that people can find what they want to watch. Basically, we don’t try to trap people into the old live pay TV model.”

For the updated color palette, Schanam said the company’s research found that customers connect with Sling TV through its colors. While the old logo featured a darker blue, the updated one features a lighter blue, yellow and orange aesthetic.

The brand campaign and image update comes about seven months after EchoStar completed its merger with Dish Network. It’s the platform’s first brand campaign since the merger, although Sling TV did not disclose how much it cost.

In its latest quarterly earnings in May, EchoStar reported that Sling TV lost around 135,000 subscribers compared with the previous year, where the platform saw a loss of 234,000. Sling TV ended March with a total of 1.92 million subscribers.

However, Schanman said the main goal isn’t solely to drive subscribers to the service, but rather to create something unique in a saturated market, leading to better customer acquisition and higher retention. 

“Our goal is to create some uniqueness in the market and stand out, since we are a unique service,” Schanman said. “We’re not necessarily a cable or satellite TV replacement. We’re an alternative. We’re significantly less expensive. We have a very unique set of channels.”