Bundaberg Rum has teamed up with Fox Sports to create a new NRL campaign to boost its support of Fox Sports Rugby League coverage built around a four-part documentary series called ‘The Game That’s Unmistakably Ours’.
Airing over the weekend’s ‘Fox League’s Bundaberg Rum Super Saturday, the initiative is essentially a collection of stories celebrating the contribution of everyday people to the sport of rugby league in Australia.
‘The Game That’s Unmistakably Ours’ is fronted by four, five-minute films that aim to engage viewers with optimistic real stories about real people.
The emotive, comic story-telling series, brought to life by James Rochford and Tim Sheridan, aims to capture what fans truly love about the game in a ‘uniquely entertaining way’.
The campaigned, developed with agency Leo Burnett (Sydney), is promoted with a full-length trailer which debuted on 19 March on both the brand’s channels
and also those platforms belonging to the broadcaster.
The series is also being teased across the brand’s other social sites such as Facebook.
Part One opens the series with the story of one of Rugby League’s great clubmen – Barry Buchanan.
Nicknamed ‘Uncle Buck’, Buchanan has long been part of the Cowboys community having worked for the club in various different roles since the team was formed in 1995.
The film series will continue to air over the Fox League season.
‘The brief for Fox Sports was simple; create an entertaining and progressive content series while remaining true to Bundaberg Rum’s core values of mateship, optimism and having a crack,’ explains Bundaberg Rum marketing director Adam Ballesty.
‘The Game That’s Unmistakably Ours’ series shows how Fox Sports can work with brands to deliver unique, innovative and engaging content to their audience. Nothing is more powerful than live sport for advertisers, and Fox League continues to raise the bar in broadcasting. We know sport, and we know our viewers. That’s why we can produce branded content in a way that’s authentic.’
‘The production team, under creative director Tim Leckie, has produced a terrific piece of content that celebrates the game and its characters in the distinctively entertaining ‘Fox League’ way,’ adds Fox Sports head of client solutions Belinda Dolman.
Working for the Diegeo brand’s client trio of marketing director Adam Ballesty, senior brand manager Karl Roche and assistant brand manager Jack Basil-Jones, was a Leo Burnett team led by group business director James Walker Smith, business director Simon Starr, business manager Trishika Ramrakha and media director Stuart Capel.
Media was run by a MediaVest unit led by client services director Lauren Small, partnership director Craig Cooper, digital director Alicia Phillip, planner/buyer Fiona Hedge and account executive Kate Holland.
Others involved in the campaign were an MCN team which included Myles Taylor, Emily Changizi, Elise O’Toole and Damian Bransby, while the Fox Sports unit was led by creative director Tim Leckie, project manager Jared Ben and senior account manager Jemma Hawksford.
Activative Comment:
The sponsorship activation is essentially an NRL media partnership focused extension of Bundaberg Rum’s brand’s ongoing ‘Unmistakably Ours’ core marketing concept.
The object of this marketing approach is to unite Australians by ‘reinvigorating love and pride for the Australian spirit – both for the rum brand and for Australian values.
As further illustrated by its recent general ad campaigns such as this March TV commercial.
Bundaberg has a heritage in Australian sports sponsorship.
It was a long-time partner of the Wallabies, but terminated its sponsorship after a decade in 2010.
Then in 2012 it dropped its official NRL partnership, but reinstated the tie-up again in 2016.
The Diageo-owned drinks brand resigned in April 2016 as the naming rights partner for the NRL’s Super Saturday set of fixtures (bringing it brand and logo exposure during the finals series and the State Of Origin tournament as well as activation opportunities on both Fox Sports and Nine broadcasts).
The firm will also have brand exposure during the finals series and the State of Origin tournament.
Links:
Bundaberg Rum
https://www.bundabergrum.com.au/
https://www.youtube.com/user/bundabergrumtv
https://twitter.com/bundabergrum
https://www.facebook.com/BundabergRum
Fox Sports Australia
http://www.foxsports.com.au/
https://www.youtube.com/user/FoxSportsAu
https://twitter.com/foxsportsaus
https://www.instagram.com/foxsportsaus/
https://www.facebook.com/foxsportsaus
