A’ja Wilson and Jalen Brunson star in Lowe’s debut basketball campaign

Lowe’s has a long history in sports sponsorships, including almost two decades of prior involvement with Nascar and an active relationship with the NFL. But the home improvement retailer has never taken a shot at basketball.

That changed today when Lowe’s announced its first-ever basketball campaign, which includes partnerships with Las Vegas Aces center A’ja Wilson and New York Knicks guard Jalen Brunson. CMO Jen Wilson has aspirations to expand the work into a multifaceted basketball platform, she told Marketing Brew, applying tactics that have worked for the brand in football and soccer to try to connect with Gen Z and millennials through the cultural power of basketball.

“There’s a vibe to basketball that we just love,” Wilson said. “And not just women’s, but men’s basketball, too.”

Nail on the head

Lowe’s has approached sports marketing at both the league and athlete levels depending on its goals. With the NFL, the brand went for breadth and reach in the form of a league-wide deal, Wilson said, while in soccer, her team tapped Leo Messi, a decision aimed at building deeper relationships and loyalty with customers.

To stand up their basketball platform, the Lowe’s team started with athletes instead of leagues, which Wilson said allowed the brand to get into the space quickly, learn what works, and try to establish credibility among fans. With that said, she added, WNBA and NBA sponsorships are “absolutely on the table for us to evaluate” down the line.

When it came to choosing players to work with, Wilson said her team wanted athletes who represented the brand’s “drive for excellence.” A’ja Wilson certainly fits that description as a four-time MVP who recently became the highest-paid player in the W. Brunson didn’t become a “mega superstar” quite as fast, Wilson said, but he’s become a leader on the Knicks and has a reputation for consistency, which she said “is going to connect with our customers in a really special way.” Brunson dropped 39 points in Game 5 against the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night, and New York decisively won the series on Thursday, advancing to the second round.

There are a few different versions of the creative, but they all center on a bit of humor and are meant to reflect the players’ personalities, Wilson said. The campaign will run throughout the year, kicking off in the middle of the NBA playoffs and the tipoff of the WNBA’s 30th season. The ads will appear on linear TV, OTT, paid social, and Lowe’s-owned channels like its website and marketing emails.

Right at home

After decades in sports sponsorships, it may come as a surprise that Lowe’s hadn’t had basketball on its roster until now. Wilson explained that it was a matter of maturation for the brand, its other sports sponsorships in football and soccer, and the sport of basketball itself.

Lowe’s reported total sales of $20.6 billion in Q4 of 2025, up from $18.6 billion for the same quarter in 2024, and projects an annual increase of between 7% and 9% in total sales for this year. Meanwhile, women’s basketball viewership, fandom, and revenue have been on the rise, and Wilson said her team was looking for a sponsorship with a strong women’s sports angle as they aim to target women shoppers.

“The reach is incredible, the fandom is incredible, and so it just felt like it was the right time…to start talking to women and men alike in this sport,” she said.

In addition to women, Wilson said the basketball platform is designed to help Lowe’s acquire younger consumers and funnel them into the brand’s membership program. To see how the effort is working, her team will track brand awareness, brand preference among basketball fans, impressions, and reach.

In true CMO fashion, Wilson also intends to use basketball as a means to involve Lowe’s in pop culture conversations to drive buzz, a strategy that she said has already worked for the brand in other sports. When Lowe’s partnered with Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson for its NFL ads last year, he wore a necklace that the company later sold replicas of to members only at first. It “sold out in minutes” among that group before a wider release, Wilson told us.

“We’re looking at ways that we can tear some sheets out of our playbook from soccer and from football around trending items,” she said. “We are…thinking about how we can create viral items and see if we can create some fandom for our brand, as well as tapping into the fandom for these two players and for the sport.”