The first week of October saw UEFA Europa League partner Enterprise Rent-A-Car launch its new-season campaign, ‘Legendary Journeys’ which sees fans compete to have famous footballers join them to experience their own, personal match trips.
The vehicle rental brand, which extended its partnership for a further three years back in February 2018, teamed up with former European stars Michael Ballack, Freddie Kanoute and Robert Pires for the campaign launch to leverage the competition’s group stages.
The campaign, which was launched by a teaser spot amplified across its digital and social channels
backed by a launch PR push.
The campaign will culminate by giving four lucky fans (chosen from across Europe) given the chance to take one of the ‘football legends’ on a journey from their home to their stadium for a European match – with stop offs at various favourite locations and the people they typically encounter en route (from iconic club coffee shops to famous supporters’ squares, to dropping by friend’s houses for teas and biscuits with a famous footballer).
Each fans journey will be recorded and showcased through a series of branded videos.
The lucky winners also receive a ‘VIP Match Day Experience’ for them and a friend at a UEFA Europa League match: including a pre-game pitch side tour, hospitality and a seat at the post-match press conference with both managers.
As well as the experiences, fans can also win a range of prizes and benefit from special rates on car hire across Europe (including a UEFA Europa League 5% off car hire discount ) by visiting www.Enterprise.co.uk/uel.
“Having renewed our partnership with the UEFA Europa League for a further three years, we want to build on the success of the past by creating a campaign which continues to demonstrate our commitment to providing excellent customer service and further grow the Enterprise brand across EMEA, which now covers more than 40 countries and 1,200 locations,” explained Enterprise European brand marketing VP Jim Stoeppler.
“Our ‘Legendary Journeys’ campaign will deliver new and unforgettable experiences for football fans around the world in exciting ways. From European football legends joining travelling fans, to providing incredible VIP Match Day Experiences, this campaign will impact every part of a football fans match day journey”.
World Cup winner Robert Pires added: “I am delighted to be working with Enterprise Rent-A-Car again to make match day journeys even more special for supporters across Europe. As players we recognise that the journey to the game is incredibly important to football fans, no matter who they support or where they are from, so it will be a real pleasure to share this experience with them. Being part of the fans’ match day journeys is going to be a great experience and I’m looking forward to being part of it.”
Comment:
This campaign essentially calls on all UEFA Europa club fans to follow their team home and away through the tournament on a journey that might climax at the final in Baku.
Since the partnership kicked off in 2015, Enterprise has been steadily building brand equity among fans across Europe by launching both Pan-European and individual market promotions each season.
The new work is essentially a turbo-charged reworking of last year’s campaign which ran through the tournament and starred former players Marcel Desailly, Robert Pirès or Christian Ziege acting as ‘Backseat Pundits’ and offering their own insight into the forthcoming matches.
It was back in February 2018 that UEFA announced Enterprise Rent-A-Car had penned a new three-year sponsorship deal to continue as an Official Partner of the UEFA Europa League.
The UEFA Europa League involves clubs from 55 countries across Europe and each season attracts a global cumulative TV audience of 980 million across all programming.
The objective behind the tie-up for the car rental brand is that, as the ‘world’s largest professional club football competition’, it gives Enterprise the opportunity to increase its global brand awareness, build consumer loyalty and engage with its markets across Europe.
“We are delighted to renew our UEFA Europa League partnership and build on the success of the first three years as we continue to invest and grow in Europe. Sport has played a key role in the growth of Enterprise Rent-A-Car globally, and the UEFA Europa League has enabled us to connect with a large audience of European car rental customers through the world’s number one passion, football,” said Enterprise’s Stoeppler when the deal was signed.
“We have been able to demonstrate our commitment to delivering excellent customer service by engaging fans and supporting them on their journeys across Europe with special car rental rates. Enterprise Rent-A-Car has also been able to bring the UEFA Europa League closer to many fans by providing access to tickets, VIP match day experiences, trophy days and the chance to meet some of the game’s legends. We look forward to continuing our relationship with UEFA and helping more fans follow their teams across Europe.”
Enterprise is the third Official Partner of the UEFA Europa League for the 2018-21 commercial cycle: following the renewal of deals with Amstel, and Kia Motors.
Other competition partners for this year also include Fedex and Hankook.
Links:
Enterprise
https://www.enterprise.co.uk/en/about/sponsorships/uefa.html
https://www.youtube.com/user/enterpriseuk
https://twitter.com/Enterprise
https://www.instagram.com/enterpriseuk
https://www.facebook.com/EnterpriseUK
UEFA
https://www.instagram.com/uefa_official
https://www.linkedin.com/company/uefa/
https://www.youtube.com/user/UEFA
UEFA Europa
https://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/
https://twitter.com/EuropaLeague
