Former title sponsor and current banking sponsor Barclays, now approaching its 20th year as an official Premier League ally, has rolled out a social series called ‘Beyond Football’ fronted by football ambassador Chelcee Grimes consisting of socially-distanced interviews with some of the biggest names in English football.
The video call interviews, which last around 13 minutes, see Grimes chat to some of the Premier League’s leading lights – players and managers – to discuss how they’d been coping with lockdown and the impact it is having on their clubs and the wider professional game.
The films, running under the financial brand’s ongoing ‘All To Play For’ platform, rolled out across Barclay’s online channels to its 1.51K YouTube subscribers.
The initiative launched on 20 May with ‘Beyond the Ball Episode 1’ featuring Burnley FC’s Nick Pope who discusses everything from haircuts to keeping fit.
Following the debut video, further episodes have rolled out weekly.
Episode 2 featured Aston Villa’s Dean Smith revealing which language he’s been learning whilst staying at home during the pandemic, while Episode 3 sees Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder recall his journey from player to manager.
Barclays Group Media and Sponsorship Head Tom Corbett says that in several ways the tie-up has become more valuable and offers more options now than it was before the COVID-19 crisis.
He said that because there is a greater demand for football content and that the value of historical rights has risen the bank has been leaning into both for its activation more than before.
“We’ve had demand from our business wing to provide and producing more content,” Corbett said. “We’ve been keeping people amused during this period and our football sponsorships have become even more important than they ever were before.”
“It pushed us to rethink quite quickly. Our rights were centred around physical stuff, in the stadiums, sending clients to meet managers, or sending players into schools to do training. None of this could happen anymore,” explained Corbett. “We had to work fast to understand how we continue to get the value from those properties in a period where we’re all socially distancing and staying apart.”
Barclays’ existing partnerships with football talent became vital (apparently they have been worked “quite hard”). “They’ve been really valuable assets while we’ve not had access to the physical side of the game.”
As well as Chelcee Grimes, Barclays has been working with fellow football ambassadors Ian Wright (eg ‘Code Playground’) and Kelly Smith on lockdown-led initiatives such as the ‘Goal Box’ social series in April and May which leveraged the bank’s sponsorship of the Barclays FA Women’s Super League.
This internal business demand has led to some innovative and personal work.
For example, Corbett highlights a Zoom call between iconic striker Alan Shearer and a group of clients in Hong Kong which went off without a hitch. Barclays even posted the clients a drink of their choice ahead of time for them to enjoy during the conversational virtual meet and greet.
“It worked phenomenally well, we may not need to fly people over, the logistics of that are crazy… and often complicated. The online environment worked really well and was much more cost-effective.”
Outcome:
Thus far the first three spots have notched up around 300,000 views across the bank’s social channels: with more than 10,000 views on its own YouTube channel, 30,000 views on its Twitter feed and 250,000 on the Barclay’s Footy Facebook page:
> Episode 1, posted on 22 May, generated 6,830 YouTube views & 10,800 Twitter views & 113,000 Facebook views & 501 Instagram views
> Episode 2, posted on 27 May, generated 270 YouTube views & 7,600 Twitter views & 64,000 Facebook views & 525 Instagram views
> Episode 3, posted on 5 June, generated 3,754 YouTube views & 12,100 Twitter views & & 72,000 Facebook views & 885 Instagram views
(Lower YouTube audience numbers than the 4-episode Goal Box women’s football social series which has thus far notched up more than 30,000 YouTube views.)
Comment:
Like many sponsors, Barclays has turned heavily towards digital activations and content during the pandemic with an interesting mix of consumer video content and segmented, targeted business initiatives. And ‘Beyond The Ball’ is a classic tactical response to the pandemic’s challenges.
Of course, online and virtual platforms will continue to play a more important role as the Premier League returns on 17 June.
The return of the most popular domestic league in the world is big news for both fans and sponsors – both hungry for action on the pitch.
Barclays, like its fellow EPL partners such as Cadbury, Coca-Cola, Budweiser and Nike will be looking at activating in a new light as consumer realities have changed through the pandemic and as there will no fans in stadiums and thus no opportunity for physical experiences.
But all remaining 92 matches will be broadcast live on Amazon, BBC, BT and Sky so there will be an avalanche of action, hours of audience time to link to and plenty of airtime to fill.
Corbett describes the return of football as a “huge step in the right direction and a small signal of getting back to normality” and will be interested to see the shape of the game running without fans.
But, as yet, says the bank is not planning a major restart marketing campaign and instead is focusing on the 2020/21 season’s activation programme.
Links:
Barclays
https://www.instagram.com/barclaysuk
https://www.facebook.com/BarclaysUK/
https://www.youtube.com/user/Barclays
Premier League
https://www.premierleague.com/
https://www.facebook.com/premierleague
https://twitter.com/premierleague
https://www.instagram.com/premierleague/
https://open.spotify.com/user/plplaylists
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