What better way to spend St Patrick’s Day than watching England v Ireland at Twickenham with a pint of GUINNESS in hand? Well the rugby mad GUINNESS team here at Synergy certainly can’t think of one! So after another busy RBS 6 Nations tournament, it’s time to look back on our highlights from the GUINNESS Made of More campaign.

It all started back in January when a refreshed team of ambassadors were chosen to bring to life the new GUINNESS Made of More brand positioning.  The four ambassadors were picked to support the brand’s partnership as ‘Official Beer of The RBS 6 Nations’, as well as Official Partners of the home unions, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The new (and one not so new) faces included Scotland’s Sean Lamont, England full back Ben Foden, Wales centre Jamie Roberts and Jamie Heaslip of Ireland who were all contracted to spearhead an integrated below-the-line campaign for the brand.

Working as part of a cross agency team with Ireland’s WHPR and Cybercom, Synergy co-ordinated the two day launch which included content filming, photography and media interviews. To really get rugby fans across all four home nations roused ahead of the tournament the Cybercom team created a spine tingling video featuring the ambassadors, which has since had over 100,000 views.

Synergy contracted the photographer, Hamish Brown, to create a selection of images that inextricably showed the players’ dynamism and power, also demonstrating that like the GUINNESS product, the brand’s ambassadors are made of something a little bit extra. Whether this is Ben Foden’s lightening fast feet or Jamie Roberts’ powerful charges through the midfield, we wanted to capture each of the ambassador’s individual traits which proves they are made of more.

The Synergy PR team secured national and regional coverage in England, Wales and Scotland across a range of sectors including sport and lifestyle press, online, radio and broadcast, with WHPR generating some great coverage in Ireland.

One of the key objectives of this campaign was to drive international rugby fans to the GUINNESS Facebook pages, and encourage a deeper brand engagement through the ambassadors providing a steady stream of exclusive content from inside their camps. The cross agency team also developed a unique competition for fans from each nation to win the chance to play alongside their hero in the GUINNESS Rugby Challenge at the end of the tournament. More on that later…

Throughout the campaign Synergy activated player and coach appearances including interviews with Wales front row Gethin Jenkins, Scott Lawson and Chris Cusiter of Scotland, as well as England (then interim) coaches Stuart Lancaster and Andy Farrell.

Throughout the championship, GUINNESS ran an off-trade competition whereby one lucky GUINNESS customer could win the chance to have an England legend come to their home and watch the England v Ireland match with their mates, whilst toasting St Patrick’s Day with a few pints of the black stuff! Former England star Andrew Sheridan stepped up to plate, and for our lucky winner Keith Roberts and his friends it was a completely unforgettable day.

Andy’s insight and running commentary throughout the game proved perfect considering the game was so forward driven, with the big man himself proclaiming that “all that passing nonsense is for wimps!” All in all, it was certainly an they will tell their friends about every time they have a pint of GUINNESS at the local pub.

After seven weeks of rugby the final weekend saw Wales aiming for a Grand Slam in Cardiff, but the final curtain was to fall at a sold out Twickenham on St Patrick’s Day, with GUINNESS there to join in with the craic. Thanks to the RFU, the GUINNESS St Patrick’s Day video was shown to over 80,000 England and Ireland fans live at Twickenham, in addition to over 1,000 GUINNESS hats given away to fans in the West Car Park.  All of which added up to the GUINNESS bar have its busiest day at the rugby ever!

With Paddy’s Day behind us, the Synergy team rounded off this year’s RBS 6 Nations with the GUINNESS Rugby Challenge. Winners, plus two friends, were invited to Twickenham Stoop to play rugby alongside our ambassadors, minus Sean Lamont who was gallantly replaced by Scotland’s Jon Barclay. The warm up was taken by England forwards coach, Graham Rowntree and fitness coach Calvin Morris who later went on to referee the touch rugby competition.

By Synergy on March 27th, 2012

Tags: Alcohol, Default, Event management consultants, Guinness, PR, Public relations, RBS 6 Nations, Rugby, Sponsorship, Sport, Synergy, Synopsis, Viral Marketing, YouTube

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