Summary

BT Sport were the first brand to challenge Sky Sports’ dominance over paid-for-sports viewing, and especially Premier League. 

Sky Sports risked losing share to BT with research telling us that whilst many football fans still subscribed to Sky Sports, there was an embedded resentment over the frequent price increases and the feeling that they had no choice but to use Sky Sports. Sky Sports was not seen as being on the side of the fans but on the side of money. BT could make significant in roads through this sentiment and lack of emotional loyalty having won the Champions League rights and further Premier League rights. 

Solution

Looking at further research and analysis of fans social traffic, we realised that there was a useful dichotomy. Whilst fans were unsure about Sky Sports they were extremely proud of the Premier League. The Premier League was held up by many fans as the greatest league in the world. We realised that Sky Sports received no credit for the emergence of the Premier League, yet it had been fundamental to its success. 

Our strategy became about helping Sky Sports gain credit as an integral part of the development of the league, rather than just another broadcaster. Our belief was by creating this attribution for Sky Sports it would dwarf anything BT Sport could claim and would make them look like an imposter. 

We used Thierry Henry and the greatest moments of the last 23 years to remind fans of what amazing football moments Sky had bought to them. 

In addition, we filmed all of the pundits talking about their favourite moment from the league.

Using Facebook, we targeted fans based on the teams they supported and shared clips of only their team’s greatest moments.

We also created a microsite that hosted 300 individual clips of the best moments that fans could visit to remind themselves of iconic moments. 

Finally, we developed a stunning outdoor campaign that captured in a unique illustrative way of showing 12 of the greatest single moments in 23 years.

Results

Facebook’s most successful campaign ever. It delivered 23 million views in 3 days and was the first ad ever to reach audience saturation before appearing on TV.

Voted by The Telegraph readers as one of the 10 greatest football ads of all time.

Mirror Sport called it the “greatest thing in the history of the world ever” and was shared by 23,000 people.

Vice said that they normally hate ads but this is “dope, seriously dope.”

The TV ad was the 4th most watched film (not just ads, films) of any kind on the whole of the internet in the week it launched.

Fans watched 9,500 hours of video clips on the micro site.

Each viewer spent an average of 1.5 seconds on the site with a bounce rate of just 8% vs a norm of 50%.

The digital ads had engagement rates of 5.57% vs a norm of 1.74%.

Sky (not BT Sport) dominated the minds and emotions of football fans.