Early July saw e-commerce app Wish launch a local market campaign in Canada based on wishing that Toronto Raptors superstar and NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard signs a contract extension.
Following on from the team’s first NBA Championships and launched to coincide with the start of the NBA free agency period, the brand joins Toronto Raptors fans in wishing for a Kawhi to remain with the team.
The advertising campaign primarily runs across Toronto and spans traditional poster billboards, digital OOH sites, as well as taxi ads and messaging on the sides of transport and trucks.
The simple ad copy, written in the company’s standard signature font, reads: “Wish-ing he stays’ can be seen in Raptors’ red and black.”
The executions also offer a $5 discount for consumers who enters the code ‘CHAMPS19’ in the Wish app.
It just might! But for our #Canadian shoppers, at least there's a $5 #wishapp credit when you use code CHAMPS19 this weekendhttps://t.co/BlEdxtaZJ6
— Wish Shopping (@WishShopping) June 28, 2019
While a mobile campaign strand for fans refreshing ESPN on their smartphones will also see the ads.
The initiative is also running in a few other Canadian cities such as Hamilton and Montreal (in the latter market the copy messaging is in French).
Wish’s managing director of partnerships Sam Jones confesses that internally the company and its employees are ‘basketball-crazed’ and all anyone wanted to talk about was what was going to happen in NBA free agency.
“The narrative of the summer is if Leonard is going to stay in Toronto or leave. We think a campaign like this gives people a glimpse into the personality of Wish. It’s all about going into a city like Toronto and saying ‘yeah we know what you’re talking about,’ and place ourselves in that conversation,” said Jones.
“If the ultimate marketing stunt around that would be to get Drake and Snoop Dogg to have a conversation if he’s going to stay in Toronto or go to LA, how can we get involved in that?”
Wish also involved Snoop Dogg into the brand-led conversation when he shared a video on Instagram to his 33m followers discussing the signage ( which has been viewed more than 1.2m times in the last week) and he even tagged famous Raptors celebrity fan Drake in the post.
Wish plans to continue the campaign and pivot its direction depending on where Leonard chooses to sign: either the copy will evolve to ‘Wish-es Come True’ if he stays in Toro0nto, or ‘Wish-ing Him The Best’ if he leaves to join another team.
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According to Jones, the campaign idea and concept emerged a few weeks back in the immediate aftermath of the Raptors’ title victory and the creative was developed shortly afterwards.
The approach was to make sure that the ads and the copy was simple enough to work across multiple mediums and to spread socially amongst the local fan base and the national NBA supporter cohort.
The campaign sees e-commerce platform Wish combine its business roots in Toronto with its growing exposure to basketball in general and to the NBA in particular.
The company’s two co-founders met at the University of Waterloo, roughly 75 miles from Scotiabank Arena.
This is a simple, local marketing, origin city initiative based around a recent sports success and name pun copy.
The ad approach that sees the online retailer aim to be part of the conversation about where Leonard will sign for future seasons.
The Snoop Dog/LA angle links to Wish’s jersey patch sponsorship with the Los Angeles Lakers: a three-year deal signed in 2017 worth more than $12 million per year (see case study).
Welcome to LA @AntDavis23 @Lakers #lakeshowwish pic.twitter.com/DdHsmgPDgM
— Wish Shopping (@WishShopping) June 18, 2019
The deal’s assets provide Wish with courtside Lakers seats which it regularly gives to famous faces (such as Kendall Jenner, Halsey and Snoop Dogg) in return for them wearing a Wish t-shirt at the game.
According to Wish, the company’s exposure through its Lakers partnership has been ‘crucial’ for the nine-year old company in building its $1bn+ revenue.
“When people started to see our logo on the Lakers jersey, it provided a ton of legitimacy, as well as a tremendous amount of comfort which has been a real plus for us,” claimed Jones.
Wish is currently negotiating an extension with the Lakers with the deal due to expire next season.
Another notable Wisj sports marketing initiative was its comic, footballer fronted ‘Time ON Your Hands’ campaign leveraging the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia (see case study).
“When we look out into sports marketing, there is almost too much clutter in it,” Jones said.
“We want to be making those statements to the tribe around a team or a club – this is something that can be easily replicated and rolled into other sports, such as in New York or Manchester around a theme or narrative that fans are talking about.”
Another benefit of this approach is the cost-effectiveness of the campaign. Compared to the multi-million dollar deal with the Lakers, Jones said this activation around Leonard has a very “short-term cost, and is more opportunistic – things like taxi and newspaper advertising are not expensive.” He declined to comment further on the cost.
Links:
Wish
https://twitter.com/WishShopping
https://www.facebook.com/wish/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS0V-1JLtAV3iihfzHcdhfg/featured
https://www.instagram.com/wish
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