BMW’s ‘Springboks Challenge’, an in-stadium ‘speed’ and ‘strength’ experience aiming to bring alive BMW’s performance attributes through its position as the official vehicle supplier to the South African Rugby Union.
The objective is to reinforce the German car brand’s ‘Ultimate Performance in Every Move’ message in an innovative way and thus the campaign was structured around a set of key BMW attributes: power, agility, dynamism and precision.
Developed with agency Levergy, the experience offered fans a chance to test themselves against the Springboks stars in a purpose built 25x10m structure at FNB Stadium (Soccer City) on Nelson Mandela Sport and Culture Day.
The day, which uniquely saw both the national South African football and rugby teams play on the same day at the same venue, saw rugby supporters test their own speed by racing against their favourite real life/real size Springbok star thanks to a 13 metre LED screen and benchmark their scrumming power by packing down against the Boks forwards.
LED wall player projections mirrored the real speed of Springboks Pierre Spies, Schalk Burger, Juan de Jongh, Jean de Villiers, Gio Aplon, JJ Engelbrecht and Jan Serfontein – providing fans an opportunity to match their own dynamism and agility against their heroes.
While, a power scrum machine simulator enabled them to try their hand at benchmarking their strength and power against the Springbok pack.
Each event was linked to social media stations to enable fans to share their experience across Facebook and Twitter.
There were also post test photo booth opportunities and an athlete appearance from Boks stars and BMW ambassadors Pierre Spies, Frans Steyn and Victor Matfield.
To support the initiative content from the pre-experience shoot was distributed by BMW to fans and consumers and the participating players in the build up as well as linking all participants activities on the day to RFID social media updates.
Levergy joined forces with official SARU vehicle partner BMW as they hosted a one-of-a-kind campaign. The experiential activation allowed the match day fans to test their strength and speed against the best in the world.
Comment
The sponsor also used the event to promote its BMW ‘M’ range of vehicles – drawing synergies between Springboks power and precision and the powerful performance offered by BMW M.
‘The activation in itself was a first of its kind on our shores and [we] implemented RFID technology, enabling automatic Facebook and Twitter updates from fans in real time at each of the stations. The updates included photo uploads to the BMW Facebook page,’ explains Levergy strategic director Struan Campbell.
‘In addition we had Youtube video’s uploaded whereby fans could check out their challenges and how they fared. As an agency we rallied behind this campaign, starting our planning early and remaining 100% dedicated to this project, resulting in the type of performance that leading brand BMW has come to expect.’
Links
BMW Springbok Challenge YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRUZO8OBOfs
South African Rugby Union
Levergy
