Chelsea official partner and sleeve sponsor Hyundai UK expands its ‘supporters first’ #ForTheFans concept through a grassroots football programme called ‘Hyundai FC’.
Chelsea’s official automotive sponsor teamed up with local UK Hyundai dealerships for a nationwide programme offering football experiences, coaching and kit for amateur clubs, players and fans working with boys and girls teams from 11 grassroots clubs across the country.
Territory: UK
Agency: Pitch Marketing Group
Objectives
Part of both Hyundai’s global mission to ‘bring ease to mobility’ and its football marketing strategy to ‘make football more accessible to fans and bringing benefits to supporters’, the umbrella #FansFirst brief was to support ans from elite to grassroots level across the country and the specific ‘Hyundai FC’ strand focuses on the latter through a programme of inspiration and practical support.
The aims was also to use its Chelsea partnership to provide a platform for local dealerships to build closer connections to their communities which will build awareness and values and generate new leads.
Activation
June 2019 saw Hyundai Motor UK launch ‘Hyundai FC’: a new nationwide programme – for under-8s to under-16s – leveraging its partnership with Chelsea to support grassroots youth football.
The programme was promoted through a PR and social campaign led by a hero film running across the club’s online channel called ‘Welcome to Hyundai FC: Chelsea Pitch Day’.
The spearhead spot focused on the participatory programme’s launch event which saw players, families and coaches from the 11 teams involved in the scheme all invited to Stamford Bridge to kick-start the programme.
This experiential phase of the initiative saw the guests taken on a behind-the-scenes stadium tour, and put through an on-pitch skills session run by Chelsea coaches, before each club was presented with a set of bespoke training plans to help their team develop over the upcoming months.
Plus, during the visit, the teams and the attending Hyundai dealers were also treated to a meet and greet with the Blues’ legend and FA Cup winner Gus Poyet, and Chelsea’s beloved mascots Stamford and Bridget.
The project offers tailored football experiences, elite coaching sessions from Chelsea FC UEFA qualified Foundation coaches, plus new playing and training kit and a set of Chelsea benefits all aimed at inspiring the next generation of aspiring footballers.
Throughout 2019, Chelsea coaches will visit all lf the 11 teams to implement their training programmes, while each Hyundai FC club coach also has an opportunity to visit the Blues’ training base in Cobham to participate in a hands-on coaching experience with Chelsea Academy coaches and teams.
The full list of Hyundai FC teams:
- Anstey Nomads FC (Loughborough, Leicestershire)
- Barnoldswick Town Juniors FC (Barnoldswick, Lancashire)
- Bishop Auckland St Mary’s (Bishop Auckland, Durham)
- Byfleet Village (Slough, Surrey)
- Cleethorpes Town (Grimsby, Lincolnshire)
- Crofton Juniors AFC (Wakefield, Yorkshire)
- Kilgetty AFC (Kilgetty, Pembrokeshire)
- Marston Green FC (Birmingham)
- Whiteley Wanderers (Southampton, Hampshire)
- Willaston White Star FC (Nantwich, Cheshire)
- Woodley Saints Wolves (Sonning, Berkshire)
“One of the key aims of ‘For The Fans’ is to put fans first: supporting and enabling all fans from grassroots to elite level across the country,” commented Hyundai UK Marketing Director David Pugh.
“With the help of our dealerships and Chelsea’s top-class Foundation coaches, we are committed to inspiring the next generation of players and fans through Hyundai FC. We are looking forward to giving the 11 teams involved a season they will never forget.”
Simon Taylor, head of the Chelsea FC Foundation, added: “It is fantastic to see companies like Hyundai investing in football from the elite level right through to the grassroots. The Foundation is looking forward to working with the players and coaches, helping to deliver a programme that will stay with the clubs for years to come and creating a legacy for the Hyundai FC coaches, their teams and football in their communities.”
The initiative is just one part of Hyundai’s umbrella football #ForTheFans European marketing strategy which is built around a set of five new club partnerships with AS Roma, Atletico de Madrid, Hertha BSC, Olympique Lyonnais and Chelsea.
These deals, which include the brand’s logo on the sleeves of Chelsea, Hertha and Atletico, on the back of the AS Roma jersey and the front of the Olympique Lyonnais shirt.
Agency Pitch is responsible for the strategic and creative development of these partnerships through the ‘For the Fans’ approach (which also applies to Hyundai’s other major football marketing pillars such as its top tier partnerships with FIFA and UEFA, as well as regional and local football sponsorships around the world such as its Australian partnership with the national teams and the A league).
Pitch’s brief is to activate Chelsea sponsorship at a national level by executing the pan-European activations locally as well as developing and activating UK-specific ideas across earned, owned and paid channels to enhance fans’ matchday experiences, bring ease to fans’ mobility and make football more accessible to them.
The UK sleeve sponsorship announcement was first promoted in May/June 2018 when Hyundai celebrated its Chelsea tie-up with a comic fan/player photo shoot/video campaign and ticket competition.
While the spot features Chelsea players David Luiz, Olivier Giroud and Tiémoué Bakayoko, it is a set of avid Blues supporters who are the stars of the show and the subjects Hyundai’s first photoshoot with the club.
The video was promoted across both club and brand channels and the narrative saw the Blues players turn up to a photoshoot where it was actually the Chelsea fans taking centre stage and assuming the starring roles more commonly associated with the footballers.
11 upcoming teams. Meet the next generation of football talent in the UK. Introducing Hyundai FC. #ForTheFans pic.twitter.com/MSin5oTYjx
— Hyundai Motor UK (@Hyundai_UK) June 4, 2019
This spot was supported by a competition to win match tickets and reward fans ‘who have gone the extra mile to follow the Blues’ by surprising them with Chelsea match tickets and merchandise.
Come on you Blues! We are now the official sleeve partner of @ChelseaFC until 2022. #FortheFans #hyundai #chelsea #CFC: https://t.co/csT2pAgvyv pic.twitter.com/85CpqP1s1f
— Hyundai News (@HyundaiEurope) June 11, 2018
Hyundai gave away four pairs of tickets to Chelsea’s first home game of the 18/19 Premier League season and to be in with a chance of winning a pair, supporters simply need to login to Twitter and retweet any post made by @HyundaiUK which includes the hashtag #ForTheFans in the post copy between June 11th and June 17th.
The four-year Chelsea deal, Hyundai’s first move into the UK domestic football space, is based around a rights package that includes car displays at the club, as s well as the usual suite of rights including LED perimeter boards, interview backdrop placement and digital content rights.
“With our increased portfolio of football partnerships, we aim to build deeper, more consistent emotional connections with fans,” said Hyundai Motor Europe head of brand experience Rolf Faber.
Pitch Marketing Group Managing Partner Adam Raincock added: “Our domestic and global expertise in football, creative approach to marketing and forward-thinking campaign make this an exciting time for both brands. The integrated campaign plays to our strength as an agency and we’re looking forward to further implementing the campaign through all marketing channels.”
“For 20 years, Hyundai has been bringing the dynamism, passion and excitement of football to fans around the world,’ said Andreas-Christoph Hofmann, vice president of marketing and product at Hyundai Motor.
“We are thrilled to begin a new partnership with Chelsea – a successful and ambitious club that matches the global scale and challenging spirit of Hyundai. Just as we always place the customer first, so we have always positioned fans at the heart of our activities throughout our long-running engagement in football. We will be taking the same approach with Chelsea fans as we kick off this new partnership. Along with our existing partnership with Olympique Lyonnais, this marks the start of a new pan-European sponsorship approach that will include other top clubs in Europe.”
Chelsea Commercial Director Chris Townsend OBE commented: “We are delighted to be announcing our new partnership with Hyundai that will see this iconic brand appear on the sleeve of our match shirts from next season. At Chelsea we pride ourselves on partnering with some of the world’s leading companies and we look forward to working closely with Hyundai as they seek to reward, engage and entertain our global fanbase.”
Outcome / Results
The ‘Welcome to Hyundai FC – Chelsea Pitch Day’ spot on Chelsea’s YouTube channel generated 583 views and the PR launch generated coverage in both the football press (eg Four Four Two), the marketing media (eg PR Week), auto publications (eg Endeavour Auto) and in the regional press local to each participating team (eg Birmingham Mail).
Laurie Griffin, Senior International Development Officer at Chelsea FC, added: “We’ve had a great reaction from players, parents and coaches in every location we’ve visited. The programme has created opportunities for players to learn from Chelsea FC Foundation coaches, which will help them on their footballing journey – wherever that takes them.”
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