Best Brand Activation Involving Football
• Gatorade & Manchester City – Everyday Goals
Gatorade activated their partnership with Manchester City over the 22/23 season to help promote their new positioning as a drink ‘for all’ not just elite athletes. The objective of the activation was to democratise Gatorade by embracing current consumer perceptions of the brand and draw attention.
In response, a 3-episode series was created called ‘Everyday Goals’, which explored different aspects of Man City players training routines. Each episode was tailored around three key areas – ‘nutrition’, ‘pre-activation’ and ‘on the pitch’ and was hosted by a relatable influencer to ensure the learnings from the series could be simplified and incorporated into the ‘everyday athletes’ own fitness routines.
The organic and paid media strategy placed the content into contextual environments where Gatorade’s audience typically consumed sport and fitness content in both long and short form, whilst also provoking editorial credibility with organic posts across Man City channels. There was also a focus on the environmental impact of the campaign to understand the emissions and active attention across our paid media strategy.
The results of the campaign significantly exceeded the KPIs set, overachieving 400% on impressions, 350% on views and outperforming the Scope 3 benchmark for emissions per impression by 0.17%.
• Lyle & Scott – Kits for Clubs
As transfer fees, salaries and commercial revenue at the top of the game reach astronomical levels, the efforts and dedication of the heroes of amateur football are often under-appreciated and overlooked. Kits for Clubs by Lyle & Scott recognises that football at its grassroots is shamefully underfunded, and often leaves small local communities with no choice but to contribute their hard-earned incomes to keep their clubs alive.
‘Kits for Clubs’ pays tribute to Lyle & Scott’s historical connection to football by offering free, bespoke football kits to amateur teams and small clubs across the world. The campaign invites any club, whether 5, 7 or 11-a-side, freestylers, pub teams or mid-week footballers, to apply to receive customised complimentary football kits.
• Paris Saint-Germain x Accor – vALLentine’s Day
When drawn at home against Real Sociedad on February 14th 2024, this resulted in PSG playing for the 4th time in 7 years a Champions League game on Valentine’s Day. It is another year that PSG and football fans were provided with the familiar dilemma – watch the football or spend the evening with their loved one. This year, PSG and Accor teamed up to navigate this dilemma. They organized a contest for a couple to fly to another time zone where they could enjoy the game in the afternoon and a romantic dinner at night for Valentine’s Day.
The campaign to launch the contest has generated over 25 million impressions and was acclaimed by PSG fans and football lovers. To participate, a dedicated contest webpage was created for participants to choose their ideal destination between Miami, Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro. Fans had to sign up to the Accor membership program which resulted into more than 6,000 members for Accor membership program.
• Sela x Newcastle United
Newcastle United is the beating heart of a one-club footballing city. Yet, for so long fans were starved of success to shout about.
In 2023, NUFC were returning to the UEFA Champions League after 20 years; now with Sela, a dynamic creator of spectacular experiences and iconic destinations, as their front of shirt sponsor.
With fans filled with anticipation, Sela surprised all by staging a UK-first: an awe-inspiring, football-themed drone show above the iconic St. James’ Park stadium on the eve of their return.
The content truly resonated, concluding with drones forming a statement to bring fans excitement and confidence: “We’re Back”.
Alongside a comprehensive global communications campaign featuring hero content published on UEFA, Premier League and football media channels, the drone show reached 1 billion+ people in 162 countries and feature in 80+ media outlets. Millions of fans engaged with the show and content, with ‘amazing’ and ‘spectacular’ reviews from partners, stakeholders, football fans and institutions globally.
The show not only inspired the footballing world, it also delivered strongly against Sela’s brand objectives: to be seen, to be known and, ultimately, to be loved.
• The Space Between – The FA Women’s Football Weekend
The ‘Pick a Pride’ campaign was a bold and unapologetic campaign that compelled casual football fans to show up and follow a club for the Women’s Football Weekend.
Despite the Lionesses’ incredible success at the Women’s 2022 Euros, interest in the sport hadn’t yet translated into the women’s domestic leagues – the Barclay’s Women’s Super League and Barclay’s Championship.
Our challenge was to use Women’s Football Weekend to demonstrate the excitement and quality of the women’s leagues.
The integrated campaign created customised content for clubs, delivered a wide scale OOH campaign in the hometowns of BWSL fixtures, and illuminated buildings in derby cities with team colours, using social media polls for fans to pick the teams’ colour they wanted to see. Finally, influencers were used to showcase their experience of the games to our target audiences.
The results broke all records for Women’s Football Weekend. The campaign achieved the highest peak viewership across Sky matches, with a 95% increase from the previous year. Attendance across BWSL matches soared by 210%, setting records for Everton, Spurs, and a sold-out match between Man City and Chelsea.
• Three, Chelsea FC and Samaritans
Research commissioned by Three showed that men are four times more likely to talk about football than their mental wellbeing.
Through Three’s partnerships with Samaritans and Chelsea F.C., and as one of the UK’s biggest mobile networks, they had a unique opportunity to make a difference and start a conversation amongst football fans that goes beyond more than just football.
The goal was simple: reach as many people as we could to get men to #TalkMoreThanFootball.
• Wasserman & LALIGA: The Two Biggest Names In World Football Join Forces
We were tasked to launch the new LALIGA logo (Double L) and brand
positioning “The Power of our Fútbol” in the UK and Ireland, a key strategic market for the top men’s professional football division of the Spanish football league system.
We came up with the idea of bringing together the two biggest names in world football with LALIGA becoming the front of shirt partner for Clwb Pêl Droed Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch Football Club. A team in the fifth tier of Welsh Football which boasts the longest name in world football AND has five double L’s in its name. It didn’t just have a catchy headline (although that helped) but stood true to the new brand positioning of LALIGA being about so much more than just elite level football in Spain, but also inspiring grassroots football in every corner of the planet, including in deepest North Wales.
• Xero – Women’s Football Partnerships
Xero is a global small and medium business accounting software provider. As Official FIFA Women’s Football and FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ Partner (FWWC) and Official Partner of the England Senior Women’s Team (the Lionesses), Xero were betting on the power and success of the women’s team, and the global stage of the FWWC, to drive brand growth.
As a challenger brand, Xero had to tap into the authentic emotion around women’s football in order to be remembered amongst small and medium sized businesses founders and football fans across the country – this was never going to be a simple badging exercise.
The Dream Bigger campaign shone a spotlight on those who are redefining the women’s game, on and off the pitch, capturing the hearts and minds of the nation, and perfectly encapsulated the narrative and sentiment of players and fans alike. It celebrated those that have dreamed bigger for the women’s game to present Xero as the brand which frees people to not only follow their dreams, but to embrace even bigger possibilities.
Xero is a first-time sponsor of football and in just 6-weeks the campaign drove brand awareness and brand equity scores to the highest ever seen in the UK.
