The first week of March saw the AFL launch a pre-season campaign, ‘Believe’, to build buzz and excitement around kick-off through fan-generated content and work featuring some of the sport’s star names.
The initiative, which launched two weeks ahead of the start of the 2020 Toyota AFL Premiership Season opener (on 19 March), was produced in-house by AFL Media and is built on the premise of ‘belief’.
It aims to generate a sense of excitement and optimism around the new season.
The campaign runs across television, social and digital channels, plus out-of-home sites, press executions and at-stadium and match initiatives throughout the season.
Tactically, the campaign also marks the first time that the league’s season launch work has been tailored to market/region – with bespoke television spots for Queensland and New South Wales to maximise engagement in different regions.
The hero TV spots blend famous on-field moments with supporter-created content to form a series of rich and entertaining moments that seek to charm committed fans and capture the attention of those less engaged in the game.
According to Darren Birch, general manager growth digital and audiences at the AFL, the campaign sets out to communicate and showcase the on- and off-ground AFL experience in order to ‘elevate our brand and appeal to a broader audience’.
“We were thrilled to land the opportunity to lead this program of work in 2020; we have really challenged what’s been done previously and we feel we’ve executed a campaign that truly brings to life the essence of the AFL brand,” explained AFL Media Creative Director Andrew Hutchison.
“We look forward to rolling out an integrated program of work in 2020, with multiple key campaigns throughout the year aligned to the Believe platform.”
The campaign was created for AFL Head of Marketing Heath Walker, AFL Marketing Manager (Fans & Clubs) Katie Hynes, AFL Marketing Programs Lead (AFL Fans) Rita Khouri, AFL Marketing & Player Engagement Lead Jack Gray, AFL Media Project Manager Leigh Dunston, AFL Media Creative Director Andrew Hutchison, AFL Media Art Director Sam Russell, AFL Media Deputy Art Director Chris Nardo, AFL Media Vision Christopher Bell, AFL Media Research Jarrad Gardner and AFL Media Audio Mark Farrow.
The production company was Riot with Executive Producer Dave Christison, Director Marty Moynihan, Researcher Scarlett Maloney, Editor And Grade Aaron Carroll, Motion Graphics And Animation Carl Whitbread, Creative Producer Donald Mayes and CAD Hayley Campbell.
Comment:
This initiative is somewhat different in strategy and messaging thatn previous AFL campaign with more of a focus on fans and using supporter stories and content to help tell the AFL’s story.
This new initiative is an evolution of the rights-holder’s previous ‘Don’t Believe In Never’ positioning and platform as per the league’s 2019 pre-season promotional work (see case study) and it also follows the February 2020 launch of the partner AFLW’s own season launch campaign (see case study).
Links:
AFL
https://www.afl.com.au/seasonlaunch
https://www.instagram.com/AFL/
https://www.youtube.com/user/BigPondAFL
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