Across the pond, college sport is big business. According to Kantar Media research, the NCAA college basketball tournament, or ‘March Madness’ as it is more commonly known, has now overtaken the NFL Playoffs to become the most lucrative US post-season sport property for advertisers.
As such, there is a real onus on sponsors to produce unique and engaging campaigns in order to stand out from the crowd and deliver a return on what would no doubt have been a sizeable investment.
At this year’s tournament, telecommunications provider AT&T have managed to do so by using the @MarchMadness feed to bring real-time video highlights to the fans.
While this may not seem like such an exciting development, drilling down deeper into the mechanics of the service reveals how this opportunity could lead to a revolution in how rights holders, broadcasters and sponsors can collaborate to leverage branded content on Twitter.
What Happened
Turner, the official tournament broadcaster, have partnered with Twitter and quick-share video start-up SnappyTV to bring fans 15-second highlight clips of key plays via embedded video Tweets. Content is selected in real-time by Turner’s social media team, who use a combination of human judgement and SnappyTV’s social media monitoring software to track the most talked about moments in the game. In less than a minute, the relevant clip can be posted online for people to view and share with their friends. This example from Florida Gulf Coast’s improbable run to the round of sixteen shows the technology in action, and the ensuing Twitter conversation around highlight plays.
(Unfortunately, clips are geo-blocked to the US only but AT&T’s pre-roll can be viewed regardless of location. Refresh the page if you missed it!)
While this technology isn’t new (it was used in last year’s tournament by Turner), this year is the first time that sponsors have partnered with Twitter to bring these clips to fans via a short pre-roll ad with embedded video content.
Why we love it
In the past year, Twitter has invested significantly in figuring out the tricky task of how to make money from the social conversation around live TV. Snappy TV’s video highlight service has given sponsors, such as AT&T, the chance to emotionally link their brand with high-stakes knockout tournament basketball, and the thrills and spills that this entails.
AT&T have also understood the demand for fast, shareable content and utilised the technology available from SnappyTV and Twitter to create a seamless user experience, where video content can be accessed without the need to click on an external link. This ease of use has enabled users to easily retweet and share highlights with their friends, thus giving AT&T the additional benefit of being seen favourably by the consumer as the provider of their chosen video highlight.
For the broadcaster, advertising opportunities around sponsored video highlights can mean additional revenue streams as sponsors increasingly wise-up to the benefits of supplying eminently sharable content to an already engaged and passionate fanbase.
While this technology is still in its relative infancy, the growth potential in this medium is significant. Current reports project Twitter’s ad revenues will reach the $1bn mark by 2014, with the most significant growth projected to occur in the mobile sector. With this in mind, it will be interesting to see how many brands will follow AT&T’s example and embrace the potential of second screen advertising.
For golf fans, the onset of April is all about looking forward to The Masters, the year’s first Major and one of the jewels in the crown of global sport. That being the case, it’s also a key marketing moment for brands looking to leverage golf, which always sees a raft of campaigns unveiled. And first off the tee this year is Oakley, with a brilliant fusion of bravery, creativity and innovation, featuring reigning Masters champion Bubba Watson. The launch film – over 300,000 views in 24 hours at the time of writing – speaks for itself.
There are so many things I love about this idea and this film, but I’ll pick three in particular.
1. Its inspired use of endorsement. As Bubba is above all known for being unconventional, the endorsee and the creative idea fit perfectly – still a rarity in sports marketing and, at a time when the falls from grace of Tiger Woods and Oscar Pistorius among others are leading many to question the value of endorsement, a reminder that it’s still a very valuable asset in the sports marketing toolkit when you get it right.
(Related point. If Rory McIlroy was still an Oakley asset, I wonder whether they would have used him instead of Bubba.)
2. Its alignment with the Oakley brand. Oakley has a very strong point of view about innovation, which is absolutely key to its DNA and product portfolio. But on top of this, it also has a brand manifesto – ‘Beyond Reason’ – which it set out in a series of films launched last year, led by this.
Again, it’s a rarity in sports marketing to see brands committing so strongly to a point of view. More brands should do it, as a touchstone to guide everything they do. If Oakley hadn’t had ‘Beyond Reason’ as a framework for their thinking, I’d wager that making a call on Bubba’s Hover would have been a lot harder.
3. The film isn’t over-branded. Sure, there are some obligatory shots of the Oakley logo on the hovercraft, but overall the branding is subtle and lets the idea – and the Oakley point of view – speak for itself. Refreshing.
With brave content like this, the future is definitely sunny for Oakley…here’s hoping we see a few more bold brands making the cut this year.
As the New Year dawned, everyone had their opinion on what would be the biggest trends of 2013, and the ‘Internet of Things’ was a common theme. As the name suggests, it’s all about connecting objects rather than people and points to a future when hundreds of billions of everyday objects are connected to the web and ‘talk’ to each other. That day is clearly still some way off, but brands are starting to explore the endless possibilities of connective technology. Nike have produced connected trainers that capture the data in our physical movements, and ‘Smart Homes’ from British Gas enables customers to remotely control their heating via mobile devices. However, Budweiser have used the technology in a way that has particularly caught my attention.
As Canadians huddled around their televisions on Super Bowl Sunday, they were introduced to Budweiser Red Lights in the product’s debut TV spot, and within an hour, they were sold out online. So what exactly are they? Budweiser have picked out one of the icons of ice hockey, the red flashing light synonymous with rinks throughout Canada, and offered fans a unique chance to have them installed in their living rooms. The lights work by connecting to WiFi and syncing to an app to discover the team you support, and react when they score. So when your team’s goals fly in, the light illuminates in all its flashing glory.
Since the initial ad, the story has evolved as Budweiser have introduced Ron Kovacs, the brand’s official spokesperson and installer, who is travelling around the country delivering the lights. He has his own twitter account, but with a mere 635 followers perhaps consumers have not bought into the character as much as the product.
Strategically it is clear to see that Budweiser, who recently lost a legal battle to sponsor the NHL, were keen to find another way in which to associate themselves with the sport and resonate with the fans. They have certainly achieved this, as the Budweiser Red Light is the ultimate home accessory for the avid goal-loving hockey fan. Budweiser have explained that ‘as a brand who loves ice hockey, they wanted to create an innovative experience to elevate those key moments during the game when celebration is at its peak’.
While the concept is enough to get any hockey fan interested, what impresses me most is the technology and how Budweiser have utilised the ‘Internet of Things’. The ways in which brands continue to connect devices and collect data will shape the future of how we all interact with the world. According to one estimate there will be 40 billion things online by 2020, whilst another suggests it will be closer a trillion. In truth, nobody really knows but as the ’Internet of Things’ continues to develop it will certainly be one to keep an eye on. However, for the time being it seems that Budweiser are leading the way, connecting the technology with a seriously fun innovation.
If you watched the BRITs last week, there would have been certain moments that would have grabbed your attention. It could have been Taylor’s Swift’s raunchy new look or perhaps James Cordon and Nick Grimshaw’s intimate moment, but what I was more interested in was witnessing the climax of MasterCard’s Priceless Remakes campaign, in which competition winners featured with artists in the sponsor’s TV idents.
MasterCard’s Priceless Remakes campaign was launched by Rita Ora, Conor Maynard and Delilah earlier this year. To celebrate its fifteenth year as BRIT Award Sponsors, MasterCard gave fans the chance to remake their ambassadors’ videos and experience how it feels like to be a star through professional make up, wardrobe, film crews and direction from Emil Nava.
The premise was simple: fans were invited to film themselves re-creating a video by Rita, Delilah or Conor and then upload it to a dedicated website: www.somethingforthefans.co.uk. Three winning videos were chosen by the artists and the winners went on to star in the Pricessless Remakes idents screened during the BRITS.
Why we love it
MasterCard have taken a standard but highly valuable sponsorship asset – their idents – and given it to the fans. An ad slot that most people would have probably ignored thus became a piece of engaging content that created a real talking point among viewers, with MasterCard at the heart of it. While the show was being aired there were hundreds of tweets by people discussing the idents, mostly with MasterCard mentions included. And the reach for the idents itself was huge by music standards – 6.5m viewers (peaking at 7.5m) – making it the most watched BRITs ceremony for 10 years.
The campaign has also secured plenty of editorial coverage and, by building a series of phases into it from the start of the year, extended MasterCard’s association with the BRITS beyond the event itself.
What made it all the more impressive was how it was used across a range of platforms – TV, print, outdoor, digital and especially social media – to gain attention and drive engagement. The Facebook page and website provided a larger draw to the campaign, with Twitter and YouTube used to get more people involved. The content created throughout the campaign was exploited and worked into various clips for different purposes including the winning videos, 60-second ads, bumpers, teaser films and ‘making of’ clips.
Lastly, the campaign has managed to take the brand to a younger audience. By utilising brand ambassadors such as Rita Ora, MasterCard have engaged credibly with the next generation. At the heart of the campaign is the ethos of giving back to consumers, and with the current zeitgeist for the younger generation being that of quick fame, the prize will have also bought some love for the brand. By allowing this younger audience to experience ‘Priceless’ in a way they appreciate, MasterCard seem to have struck a chord.
VICE is described by its CEO Matt Elek as ‘MTV for millennials’. Now a huge digital news outlet aimed at a global mass youth market, they have come an incredibly long way since their launch in 1994 as a small magazine in Montreal.
Over the past couple of years there has been a real shift in Intel’s marketing strategy, from targeting the IT geek, to anyone who wants to connect with their favourite past times via technology, be it art, music, sport, or fashion. Whether you love or hate VICE, Intel have identified its audience as key to becoming ‘relevant’.
Enter noisey.com, VICE’s partnership with technology brands Dell and Intel, brought to life only last year. In essence it’s a digital entertainment channel designed to enhance ‘video driven music discovery’. VICE travels the globe to find emerging talent in order to create ‘access all areas’ footage that gives you a sense of what life is like in a band, with Dell and Intel providing the innovative means through which we can access and experience it.
Why we Love it
Firstly, music matters to everyone, and noisey.com brings fresh content to the site daily in a five-piece series that includes documentary-style footage, along with never-before-seen performances.
Secondly, it feels organic; noisey.com appears more like the end product of a creative collaboration borne out of a successful brand partnership, not just Dell and Intel providing the technological means for VICE to do something cool. The channel adds substance and credibility to their claims of pioneering the way for innovative technological solutions.
Finally, it might seem like a dichotomy to create a website that exists purely to celebrate live music, but noisey.com can also be experienced offline as well. The music was taken to their youthful target audience through the Noisey College Tour in the USA last year, and it seems only a matter of time until it ventures across the Atlantic…
What the brand said
The only potential downfall is that Intel and Dell are ultimately pushing out the same message: John Galvin, director of Intel’s Partner Marketing Group said that “no one is positioned quite as well as Intel to push the technical boundaries of Noisey.com”, whilst Michael Tatelman, Dell’s Vice President of North America Consumer Sales & Marketing believes that “Dell’s influence was to push the bounds of digital delivery and ensure noisey.com was something no one has ever seen before.”
It’s an extremely bold move to partner with a media brand that comes under so much scrutiny from its readers, so potentially there has been a missed opportunity for differentiation in brand personality. They are not talking about themselves in way that does justice to what they’ve created, or explaining the technology that went into the process. Even so, I’m sure we will see noisey.com go on to accomplish more innovative and creative technical feats that capture the imagination with VICE, Dell and Intel at the helm.
Analysis of industry data suggests that the F1 ecosystem raises over £1b per year from sponsorship. This includes Team Sponsors and Suppliers (ranging from £100m for the big boys to £20m for the smaller teams), F1 Partners (around £25m per year in cash or Value in Kind from each of the 6 global partners) and Race Sponsorship (around £10m for each of the races with title sponsors plus trackside advertising).
To put that into context, the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games raised around the same amount (£750m from domestic sponsors plus around £250m contribution from the IOC for TOP partners) – but that was for a 4-year cycle.
So here’s a question: Given how much is spent on it from some of the world’s leading brands, why is F1 Sponsorship not at the leading edge of sponsorship thinking and activation?
It’s fair to say that F1 is ahead of the game in virtually everything else it does. So surely F1 Sponsors should be cleaning up at the major sponsorship industry awards. In fact, over the past 5 years, an F1 sponsorship has won only once out of a possible 47 SIA awards (Vodafone’s Best Sponsorship of a Team or Individual in 2009). Case studies from F1 should be inspiring sponsors in other sports. Here at Synergy, we should regularly be showcasing examples from F1 in the ‘What We Love’ section of Synopsis. But this just isn’t the case – at least not to the extent that one would expect.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some great pieces of activation in F1 (I’ll point out some of them later), but as a whole, F1 sponsorship is pretty uninspiring.
Having run the Reuters sponsorship of WilliamsF1 from 2000 – 2003 (yes – I agree – it was nowhere near ‘award-winning’!), I thought I would have a go at answering that question based on my own personal experiences.
1. Most Formula One sponsorships are B2B
Reuters primarily used F1 for B2B relationship building. A quick scan of F1 sponsors shows that over 40% have significant B2B businesses. There is little better than F1 if you have a relatively small number of high-value, global customers who you reach through targeted sales and marketing programmes. Travelling around the world to all the key markets, Formula One and Paddock Club™ are the absolute gold standard of corporate hospitality. With this being the focus of the brands’ activation programme, it is little wonder that it remains unseen by the mass audience, award panels and the Synopsis editors.
The activation challenge for the B2B partners, however, is to create the most compelling brand stories and event experiences to attract their audience. Because the fact is, especially in the small markets, most of the B2B sponsors are going after a very similar audience, in some cases exactly the same people.
2. There is too much focus on brand exposure and logos on cars and not enough on activation
Whenever brand exposure is such a critical part of the sponsorship package, it is easy to rely too heavily on it at the expense of all the other things you can do with the sponsorship. I absolutely hate the “media value” figures that are at the heart of so many F1 sponsorships. However, it is easy to measure and as long as the media value is bigger than the cost of the sponsorship, brands can be tempted to think “job done”. In comparison, Olympic sponsors can’t rely on any media value to justify their sponsorship. That’s why they have to work much harder and be far more creative with their activation.
A knock-on effect of this over-emphasis on media value is the fact that it can lead to an under-investment in activation. Typically, the rights fee is so high (because brands are paying for the exposure) that there isn’t enough left over for activation. I’m not a big believer in any rule-of-thumb ratios, but the proportion of rights fee to activation spend when I was at Reuters is definitely not going to make it into any how-to textbooks. I suspect this isn’t unusual for F1 sponsors up and down the Paddock
3. The calendar gives you no time to plan and develop great campaigns
The F1 season is relentless. The first race is in early March and the last race is in late November. In between is a never-ending cycle of travelling and managing the day-to-day execution of race weekends. Everyone goes on holiday during the 4-week summer break and at the end of the season, which then leads into Christmas. Trust me, if you want a year to fly past, get a job in F1.
Which basically just leaves January and February to do any sort of campaign development. But even those months tend to be dominated by tactical planning for the season ahead. There just isn’t the time to think about a season-long campaign or a brilliant piece of activation.
Another challenge is the global scale required by an activation campaign. Japan, Abu Dhabi, Britain, the US and Brazil have very little in common with each other from a marketing perspective. So as an F1 sponsor you are sort of in limbo between creating and delivering a global campaign that doesn’t quite work in loads of markets and developing local campaigns which feel a bit ‘small’ and short term.
4. The F1 community is too closed
There are some great people who work in F1. However, it needs more ‘churn’.
For example, when I needed a sponsorship agency, everyone I invited to pitch was effectively a specialist F1 agency. I understand why most sponsors do that, but it leads to a form of ‘groupthink’ where new ideas are thrown out in favour of “what we did last year” or “what we do with our other clients”.
This happens up and down the paddock. If an F1 team needs a new Account Manager, they are likely to hire someone from one of the other teams. If a brand needs an F1 Sponsorship Director, they are likely to hire someone who has done a similar job at another sponsor. If an F1 agency hires a new Account Director, they typically hire someone who already has F1 experience.
The danger of this ‘closed’ community is that it loses the fresh influences and perspectives that drive creativity.
I know it’s tough (I’ve been there myself) but I think F1 sponsors need to be braver and set the bar higher for their activation campaigns. The benchmark should not be: “we want to create the best F1 sponsorship campaign”, but rather “we want to create the best sponsorship campaign”. And to do that, I think that it is critical for sponsors to look for inspiration outside the very small world of F1.
The point of this blog is not to say that there are no good F1 activations – because clearly there are some great examples.
My point is simply that given the number of world-class brands who are sponsors in F1, the amount that they invest and the possibilities of F1 as a platform, there should be far more ground-breaking activation programmes than there are.
Some of our Favourite F1 Activation Case Studies:
Johnnie Walker – Step Inside the Circuit Series
Johnnie Walker extended this campaign with some experiential activity in Travel Retail environments but at its core was some great behind-the-scenes content, from Monte Carlo (below), India, Singapore and other races
Using a special online configurator, consumers in each country could create bespoke designs of the drivers’ race suits. The drivers wore the designs during qualifying for each race, while the best two designs as voted by the audience were worn on the Sunday during the Brazilian Grand Prix. Boss also did a good job of connecting this activation to their social media and retail channels:
In exchange for a donation to charity (which Red Bull matched), consumers could upload a photo which was then put on the car for the British Grand Prix.
Vodafone – Drive to the Big League
Vodafone introduced this initiative at the British Grand Prix in 2010 which offered one of their small business customers the chance to put their logo on the car for the British Grand Prix. Vodafone have taken it to a whole new level in India now, where they have combined it with a Dragons Den style TV programme to select the winner – watch it – it’s brilliant!!!
There were two things I loved about last night’s Sweden v England football international.
The first was of course Zlatan Ibrahimovich’s incredible fourth goal (at 3:28 here), footage of which went viral at the speed of light and is still trending on Twitter over 12 hours later as I write this.
The second will generate only a fraction of the buzz, but deserves to garner just as much: this is the brilliant decision by Swedbank, sponsor of the new Swedish national stadium which last night’s match helped to inaugurate, to re-name the stadium The Friends Arena to publicise the anti-bullying organisation Friends which Swedbank supports. Here’s a great interview with Swedbank’s CEO and the Founder of Friends about the idea.
I take my hat off to Swedbank for their generosity, for their sponsorship innovation and for their conviction that doing good is good for business: all fundamental aspects of the new social era of sponsorship that we’ve identified over the past couple of years - see for example Carsten’s blog from September last year, specifically the B of ABCDE in this context - and which I’ll be writing more about in the next few weeks.
I also hope that Swedbank’s innovation will kick-start a new model for naming rights sponsorship.
As I mentioned at yesterday’s Think! Sponsorship conference panel on the subject, there are above all two key value drivers for naming rights sponsors. One is the value of the media impressions generated by the brand/arena name – the traditional focus behind most brand investment in the area. The other, pioneered by O2 at The O2, is to use the arena primarily as a brand experience, which Nuala Donnelly of O2 re-iterated during our discussion at yesterday’s panel.
What Swedbank has opened up is a third front in naming rights: a showcase for a brand’s social commitment, building on the model created (and now sadly abandoned) by Barcelona gifting its shirt front to UNICEF.
Wouldn’t it be brilliant if we saw a new wave of naming rights sponsorships gifted by brands to their cause partners. Great for society, great for business, and great for sponsorship.
So, we’ve reached Day 14 of the Olympic Games with just the finale of the last weekend to go. It’s been an incredible few years building up to an almighty climax.
My role has seen me working at the centre of BMW Group’s London 2012 partnership over the past two and half years. It’s been fantastic and I’ll write more on the campaigns at a later date. For now I’ll focus on the Games more generally.
Of course there have been a million highlights, not least the fact Team GB have produced – if I had to isolate one thing that has driven the public’s passion, it’s surely the athletes’ performances. However, it’s not the only impact and the build-up has been vast. So, what have we learnt?
1. The public join late
After years of build-up, the nation were getting fatigued even before the Flame had been lit. But, as soon as the Torch began it’s merry way around the UK, Olympic passions were ignited.
Team GB started at a canter before ripping in to full throttle, and boy have they delivered. The last two weeks have created legends, as well as inaugurating a new generation of stars who will inspire the future of British sport. It’s the future that will be the key legacy discussion point after the Games and this is the open door for brands to step through. Many will try and only a few will prevail.
4. Brands build experiences
A lot has been documented about brands and their involvement in the Games. It’s clear the Games wouldn’t happen without partners’ support and the best brands have created some incredible touchpoints that have genuinely improved the experience, both in venues and across the UK. Look at the Live experiences, such as BA’s Park Live in the Olympic Park, BT’s London Live on Hyde Park and the live sites in major cities around the UK, being great examples. At a more intimate level, take a look at the mini MINIs, retrieving javelins, hammers and discuses in the Olympic Stadium, and just ask around for the number of people that want one. Brands play a huge role in the delivery of the games: financially, operationally and by adding creativity and experiences that help make the entire Olympic Movement in some way ‘better’.
5. London and the UK can do it
After years of question marks from the media and some members of the public, of course we delivered. Surely it was never in doubt. It’s been a mammoth task no doubt, but the greatest show on Earth just got even greater.
6. We found optimism
The biggest surprise to many is the surge in public pride and positive outlook that has swept the nation. I’ve been on the Tube with people talking, had people going out of the their way to help me and even seen security guards being friendly. Unheard of. The news agenda hasn’t just been dominated by sport, it has been just sport, which is massively refreshing…a small part of me is missing our sarcastic spirit, though.
7. Olympic Houses have been disappointing
Much was hyped about the experiences at the nations’ houses that have popped up all over London. I’ve managed to get to quite a few and despite the odd very good party, I’ve been pretty underwhelmed. The majority have that sterile airport lounge feel about them, with little in the way of culture or excitement. Of course, there is the odd exception, but maybe it’s because London is already blessed with art and culture from all corners of the globe? The Mayor and the GLA have done a fabulous job with different events, including projections and light sequences on many of London’s key landmarks, but I fear not enough people know about them.
Just some early reflections on what has been the best few weeks of my working life and…if Wales hadn’t won a Grand Slam recently, it could have been the best ever at a personal level too.
Enjoy the last few days and make the most of this time.
At the end of last week a couple of the Experiential team took a trip over to East London to see if all the hype around the PUMA Yard is justified, and investigate just how well their campaign is going. We also wanted to see how they have created the experience whilst staying within the confines of the 2006 Olympic Act.
PUMA Yard opened a day after the official start of London 2012 in part of the Old Truman Brewery in Shoreditch. Revelling in PUMA’s sponsorship of Usain Bolt, but with Olympic legislation prohibiting them from mentioning Bolt explicitly, the idea is obvious and simple: bring Kingston, Jamaica to the Heart of London. The sprawling pop-up caters to the crowds with hefty portions of jerk chicken, Red Stripe, Kingston Bowl and Montego Bay Brew. The inside is chock-a-block of yellow, green and black. There is a legacy wall to Bob Marley and a ‘Listening Wall’ full of PUMA sneakers which, by linking up a shoe to headphones, will play a popular reggae song from a particular decade. Plus, if you fancy it, you can kit yourself out in Jamaican-inspired PUMA gear including the Cedalla Marley speciality collection. Polishing off the theme is the constant sound of chilled reggae that permeates throughout the entire space, to really hammer home the Jamaican vibe just in case anyone had managed to miss it!
Within the space there are several interactive essentials which integrate with PUMA’s Social Club ongoing global marketing campaign. The PUMA Social Club is based around everything and anything the ‘After Hours Athlete’ needs to turn the night into a sport. Think ping pong, photo booths, famous DJs and the Bolt Speed Test which gives everyone a bash at challenging Usain Bolt’s 100m record time of 9.58 seconds.
And PUMA haven’t missed the commercial opportunity. No pop-up event is complete without its own unique and engaging shopping experience, and the PUMA Yard is no different. Out in the back yard is the PUMA Quad, an impressive mobile structure made from shipping containers and best known for its appearance at a few Volvo Ocean race stopovers. The Quad overlooks the back yard where there’s a rather large lawn and chill-out area to watch all the Olympics coverage on the big screen.
All in all, the PUMA Yard blew our socks off with ping pong, speed tests, jerk chicken and live Olympics. Does it break LOCOG’s rules? No. It has merely capitalised cleverly on the popularity of one of PUMA’s most valuable assets and created an area that encapsulates PUMA’s ongoing lifestyle campaign. Great work.
During the Team GB kitting-out event in Loughborough earlier this month, kit supplier adidas provided a photo booth with fun props and backdrops, allowing athletes to pose for pictures both individually and in groups. The snaps were printed on adidas-branded passport photo-style paper and sold into the media, with great pick-up across national press and online. This delivered some fantastic exposure for adidas and the kitting-out event, but it was also (or at least it seemed) lots of fun for the athletes, and provided a relatively rare opportunity for fans to catch a glimpse of the less serious side of Team GB.
Why we love it
The adidas photo booth has won significant acclaim, and rightly so. Adidas has been encouraging fans to #takethestage with its Olympic campaign, and this tactic put the athletes on the stage, but in a really original way. It brought to life the kitting-out session for consumers – a feat not to be underestimated given that the event really just consisted of athletes picking up their kit. Media time was available with athletes, but the creation of the photo booth meant that journalists focused on the kitting-out ceremony itself in their interviews, with more than just the requisite credit line.
The photo booth allowed athletes to choreograph their own photography, normally dictated to them by media managers, thereby allowing fans to see more of the person behind the athlete. The delivery of such original content secured media cut-through for adidas in the clutter of the Games time, and showcased the brand’s relationship with Team GB in striking contrast to some of the more stage-managed athlete content evident elsewhere pre-Games.
The success of the photography may well encourage even more brands to experiment with this sort of “talent-generated content”, such as video blogs and other creative photography, when the tone and messaging of the campaign is right. Entertaining and original photo content can clear space for brands when it would have otherwise been tight.
We also love this tactic because it can be deployed across a range of channels; adidas could install the photo booth anywhere so that customers could use it at a festival or big exhibition. I can certainly vouch for the fact that the Synergists loved the (Engine-branded) photo booth at the Engine Christmas Party!
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