As the first test of the English summer got underway, the ECB marketing team launched a summer-long real-time, digital billboard initiative aimed at spreading live-action excitement from the Sri Lanka and Pakistan internationals to cricket lovers and sports fans across the country.
This new dynamic, digital out off home campaign – which is contextual, dynamic, geo-targeted, responsive, and integrated with social media – revolves around campaign creative featuring not just the live score and real-time commentary from the @EnglandCricket Twitter feed, but also imagery celebrating milestone match moments (from wickets to sixes) as they happen.
Launching in Leeds to coincide with the start of the Headingly test, the campaign is part of the ERCB’s fresh marketing strategy: one which aims to raise awareness of England Cricket and to connect with both current cricket fans and attract new supporters to the sport.
The campaign will run on DOOH sites within, or close to each host city during each match of the summer international series’ and for the England women’s Natwest IT20 match against Pakistan.
In total, the campaign will run across nine cities (including Leeds, London, Manchester and Birmingham) and will utilise 20 outdoor sites from four media owners.
‘Our ambition is to raise awareness of the world class cricket being played this summer, and keep sports fans connected to the action,’# explains ECB head of marketing Rob Calder.
‘Exploiting innovative digital outdoor media in this way will link to our online activity and deliver a cohesive campaign across channels.’
‘This campaign from the ECB represents an intelligent use of the medium that will delight fans across the UK,’ adds Grand Visual’s Dan Dawson.
‘The campaign is fresh, geo-targeted and plugged into ECB’s all important online and social channels.’
Designed by the ECB’s retained creative agency Matta, and produced by Grand Visual, the media agency was AMS, the outdoor specialist agency Talon Outdoor (using media owners Ocean, Outdoor Plus, MaxxMedia and JCDDecaux) and the sports data was provided by Opta Sports/Perform Group
In parallel, the ECB will run its ongoing ‘It’s Not Just Cricket’ campaign on an additional 10 outdoor sites at key times when international matches are not in progress.
The campaign, which first launched in summer 2015, was developed by Matta from an ECB brief to ‘consistently communicate the all action, commitment of cricketers playing for their country, England’.
Integarted in approach, the multi-platform work stretched from outdoor and experiential work, to content assets such as player interviews,
and a series-specific ‘It’s Not Just Cricket. It’s The Ashes’ campaign film.
Comment
This campaign claims to be a ‘cricket first’ and marks a slightly new direction for the ECB marketing team.
Indeed, it is just one of several innovative approaches to live outdoor work in the sports space.
Other similar initiatives from recent weeks include a real-time DOOH campaign from the Toronto Raptors that sees the team’s 3-Pointers light-up columns in Toronto’s Union Station live
Challenged to us real-time outdoor technology to bring the excitement of the Toronto Raptors playoff games from the basketball court to the concourse at Toronto’s Union Station, this campaign aims to create an engaging experience that is relevant, real-time, and informative for the fans during the 2016 NBA playoffs.
An inventive, digital out of home initiative set-up in Canada’s busiest transit hub, Union Station, the initiative uses Clear Channel Outdoor’s six digital building column wraps to offer fans one of the Holy Grails of DOOH – simultaneous and instantaneous score updates triggered by the live event every time the Raptors make a three point shot.
Union Station’s Digital Columns Bring Real-Time Game Updates with First-In-Canada Technology from Gridcast Media Inc. on Vimeo.
The project’s technical execution is a joint venture between Gridcast Media, Soho Media and Dot2Dot Communications.
The core technology behind the campaign is developed by Soho, using its proprietary InGame Ad platform, which identifies and tracks key points in data feeds, such as “Three-pointers made by the Raptors”.
Then when a three-pointer is actually scored during the game, the software instantly triggers special content on a digital screen or billboard, interrupting the current advertising loop in real-time.
The whole solution is run by Scala, a CMS platform that manages and schedules all of Clear Channels Canada’s digital media assets.
‘This is a huge opportunity at Union Station given it is the busiest building in Canada and the hub of Toronto’s main sporting events,’ says Adam Butterworth, President of Clear Channel Canada.
‘If the Raptors keep playing like they did in Game 5, we can really test the robustness of this system.’
Clear Channel Canada will be the first media owner to offer real-time ad hoc content allowing brands to engage with the right audience at the right time in an impactful way.
Shannon Hosford, VP Marketing and Communications for MLSE, parent company of the Toronto Raptors adds, “We look forward to this innovative technology, and others like it, playing an important role in keeping sports fans up to date and involved in the game, no matter where they might be in the city.’
Links
ECB YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ecbcricket
ECB Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ecb_cricket
ECB Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/englandcricket
Matta:
Grand Visual:
Toronto Raptors Homepage:
