DHL leveraged its Manchester United FC partnership through its ‘A World United’ platform between August 2020 and May 2021 to connect fans digitally to the club they loved during a period when many were isolated due to the pandemic by building a virtual Old Trafford, inviting fans to take a digital seat and then running monthly competitions to win virtual club-centric experiential prizes.
Territory: Global
Agency: Bright Partnerships & Adrivo
Objective
DHL’s current partnership with Manchester United FC runs from 2017 to 2022 and ties together two highly visible global brands seeking to be the very best in their respective spaces and for the logistics sponsor much of its activation is built around bringing to life its mission of ‘Connecting People and Improving Lives’.
With this mission in mind, DHL tasked sport and entertainment agency Bright Partnerships and digital agency Adrivo to digitally connect fans from around the world with the club they love when they needed it most – during the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The objectives for the 2020/21 season-long activation programme included:
> Emotionalise DHL’s brand by connecting fans to the club they love
> Leverage the tie-up’s story telling potential (as with its other property activations)
> Link the UK-based sponsorship to support DHL’s international markets
>Inspire DHLs global employee base
Activation
The activation was based around the fact that Manchester United FC has a huge international fanbase which includes more than 1.1bn followers, but few of them ever actually get the chance to visit Old Trafford – the club’s stadium and spiritual home – in person. So, to meet the brief, the agency team decided that if fans couldn’t be at Old Trafford in person, then DHL would deliver Old Trafford to them.
‘A World United’ began with the creation of a virtual ‘Theatre of Dreams’ to act as a symbolic supporter destination designed to connect fans from all across the world (primarily those living outside the club’s Manchester/England heartland) and reward them for their support.
Each month, fans were then invited to take a seat in the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand each month to have a chance to make their dreams come true by winning a season’s worth pf prizes and experiences (most of which were digital/virtual and could be used through the Covid-19 crisis, but a few of which were physically/in-person).
The campaign’s main entry mechanic lived on ‘DHL InMotion’: the brand’s core sponsorship hub in the form of a simple fan entry form. Fans submitted their details (as part of a list building / data capture phase) on the form and chose a virtual seat number. A monthly ‘random’ draw then took place to select a main winner and 10 runners up. Fans could enter once per month and needed to re-enter for each new monthly draw.
This digital prize experiences included:
> Virtual Q&A with club legends Brian Robson and Denis Irwin.
> Virtual hangout with players Victor Lindelöf, Brandon Williams and Paul Pogba.
> Covid-19 compliant training session hosted by club coaches via Zoom
> Head-to-head PES matches between winning fans and players (with live video link)
The activation was promoted by creative posted across all available brand/club channels to maximise all touchpoints: including all deal package assets and channels (including club social platforms, stadium LEDs, digital programme ads and fan magazine content) and DHL’s own social and internal platforms, plus influencer marketing (with presenter Layla Anna-Lee).
Hubbed around a bespoke website (https://inmotion.dhl/en/manchester-united/a-world-united/), the evolving, competition-led activation programme ran through the year with multiple, largely monthly content rolling out right through the season: such as these Facebook video examples from January 2021 and December 2021.
Outcome
According to the agency team, the activation outperformed all target KPIs and achieved a total reach of 46m.
Amongst its key success metrics were:
> 4m+ total engagements
> 130,000 supporters taking a seat in the virtual stadium
> 1.5m video views
> Entries from 206 countries
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.