As the new Hyundai A-League season gets under way with 60,000 fans preparing for the Sydney derby, the Football Federation Australia (FFA) launches a major new multi-channel campaign, ‘You Gotta Have A Team’, that aims to both promote the new A-League season on television and social media networks and to turn the nation’s young football fans into supporters of specific domestic teams.
The FFA’s approach is based on a series of Australian football fan insights following some close season research into the state of the game.
Whilst existing A-League fans are passionate in their support, interest in the sport of football across Australia doesn’t always link to A-League club support. The governing body’s research shows that 42% of kids under 15’s who are registered football players don’t actually have an A-League side affiliation.
Indeed, of the 2.18 million Australian football fans, only 55% support a domestic Australian club.
The other 45% may play the game, passionately support Barcelona, Bayern Munich or Manchester United and spend plenty of time on EA Sports’ FIFA series, but aren’t fans of any Australian sides.
That’s 981,000 potential new, young football loving fans (plus their families) for the country’s 10 top tier domestic teams: a major demographic opportunity for the sport.
The research even suggested that even fathers who were categorised as committed rugby or cricket fans would be happy to get involved in the A-League if that was what their children wanted.
The campaign itself is thus fronted by 10-year-old Yoshi: a central character and an everyman illustration of the opportunity Australia’s pro league has to turn young football fans into fervent domestic club supporters.
The campaign’s background narrative explains that, after playing in a spring football competition last year, Yoshi is now immersing himself in domestic football and is searching for a Hyundai A-League team to support and commit to.
So the integrated new season initiative sees not just the FFA, but all 10 A League clubs go head-to-head to vie for Yoshi’s support.
Star of today's launch Yoshi!
Main man in the @ALeague campaign. pic.twitter.com/DRKKYEu3sN— Adam Peacock (@adampeacock3) October 4, 2016
Amplified by the league and all its clubs across multiple platforms and channels and through an expansive set of general league-wide and club-specific content pieces, Yoshi travels 15,000km across Australia, meeting the national team coach, as well as all the captains and star players of the 10 A-League teams.
He high fives more than 90 players, takes more than 1600 photos (including 20 selfies with Aussie football icon Tim Cahill) and visited each club, is shown around their stadiums and facilities, learns goal celebrations and gives them all the opportunity to gain his support and to persuade him that their team is the right one for him.
This campaign ran across television, cinema, radio, digital, in-stadium signage, events, experiences and its spanned more than 100 pieces of video content released largely on social media.
Football fans everywhere cold follow Yoshi’s journey via the campaign digital hub at http://www.a-league.com.au/youve-gotta-have-a-team.
And supporters were also encouraged to lobby for Yoshi’s to become a fan of their team across the social space using the hashtag, #ALeague.
Individual clips were shot with all 10 clubs as they campaign for the youngster’s support.
These ranged from bespoke, club-specific films run on their own YouTube channels
Sydney FC arranged for Yoshi to be helicoptered around Sydney with team star Bernie Ibini and gave him at amazing at-ground Allianz Stadium experience at which he walked onto the pitch beside the team and experienced the feeling of 40,000 fans chanting ‘We Are Syndey’ through loudspeakers.
local rivals Western Sydney Wanderers took the 10-year-old to a Super Fan’s family home so the kids could explain why they’re the force in the Hyundai A-League, teach him the WSW player/fan salute, before he chatted to coach Tony Popovic.
Melbourne City FC highlighted its experiences with super star Tim Cahill, teaching Yoshi his famous ‘flag punch’ celebration and gave him a pro guide to shooting, before taking him to the top of the Eureka Tower for a fantastic city view.
While city rival Melbourne Victory’s top celebrity fan, George Calombaris, gave Yoshi a puersuasive club pep talk before settling down to a bite alongside star players Besart Berisha and Carl Valeri.
Central Coast Mariners called on the culinary skills of Australia’s first MasterChef winner Julie Goodwin to cook a lunch for Yoshi and four Mariners players and the team even let him fire the famous club match day canon.
The Wellington Phoenix welcomed Yoshi with a posse of fans at the airport and a traditional Maori welcome at the team’s home ground – Westpac Stadium. The club even took Yoshi to visit film director Peter Jackson’s famous Weta Workshop and Andrew Durante, Glen Moss and Kosta Barbarouses played football with him atop Mount Victoria overlooking the city skyline.
Newcastle Jets spirited Yoshi to a nearby RAAF base for a flight in an F/A-18 Hornet and a flight simulator alongside club captain Nigel Boogaard.
Brisbane Roar boss John Aloisi poffered some skills tips and retold his most famous football moment story when he scored the penalty that sent Australia to the 2006 World Cup.
In Western Australia, Perth Glory took Yoshi to Cottlesloe Beach for a twilight beach footie kickabout and created a sand sculpture for Yoshi that read: ‘Yoshi, You’ve Gotta pick Perth Glory’. Glory player Josh Risdon even got a Yoshi tattoo.
Adelaide United recreated the winning moment from last season’s Grand Final, including the iconic Isaías Sánchez free kick and fireworks and, as well as its video,
It also took to social media sites to seek Yoshi’s support.
You've gotta have a team, Yoshi. And you've gotta love the Champions! #AUFC #ForeverUnited https://t.co/FTsOydTRbW
— Adelaide United FC (@AdelaideUnited) October 12, 2016
Yoshi based his choice on four factors that were most important to him:
1. Family: Are the clubs welcoming to a family crowd and inclusive for all ages? Being a 10 year old himself he is seeking a club that encourages the younger fans?
2. Team: Do the clubs have strong, friendly players with personality that Yoshi could relate to and admire?
3. Performance/Play: Do the team perform well together, make chances and deliver an exciting experience. Whilst Yoshi knows that with his decision he is in for the long haul and some seasons his chosen club will perform better than others, he wants a dynamic club that push themselves to create opportunities on the pitch.
4. Fans: Do the clubs have a proud fan base, will Yoshi be in good company?
The campaign’s climax saw Yoshi eventually announce his decision on national breakfast television, while big name A-League stars like Cahill offered their own opinions on social media as the days counted down to his final choice.
Who did he chose?
Melbourne City!
‘Making the final decision was a lot harder than I had ever imagined,’ said Yoshi.
‘I had such a fantastic time with each of the clubs. However, I knew Melbourne City was a club I wanted to support when, at the end of the day’s filming, Tim Cahill told me that whatever club I picked I’d be welcome back to see them anytime as their guest. The fact that they would be supportive of me, whatever choice I made, I thought was really cool. It was this clubs spirit and attitude that really appealed to me the most.’
‘Our challenge is to unite the two million people who have expressed their passion and love for football as a player, coach, referee, parent, son, daughter, supporter, administrator or fan and engrain them into the Hyundai A-League so they can enjoy the unique atmosphere that can only be felt inside the stadium on match day’, explains FFA CEO David Gallop.
‘With this in mind, we wanted to showcase the clubs’ attributes to help build a strong, loyal community following. Our goal with this initiative is to give people who’ve yet to select their team the chance to get a better understanding of what each team represents and their culture so they can make an informed decision. Because to truly feel everything football has to offer … you’ve gotta have a team!’
The campaign saw Football Federation Australia’s head of marketing, digital and fan engagement: Rob Squillacioti (and an FFAS team including senior marketing manager Jessica Laycock, general manager, media and communications David Mason, fan engagement manager Vanessa Bolzan, digital marketing manager Joy Yeo and digital content executive Alen Delic) work in harness with creative agency BMF.
The BMF team included executive creative director Cam Blackley, art director Harry Neville-Towle, copywriter James Sexton, designer Dan Pritchard, client services director Dan Lacaze, account director Will Woods, account manager Siena Shuttler, executive planning director Christina Aventi, planner Sarah Hood, head of TV Jenny Lee-Archer, directors Brad Goosen, James Sexton, Harry Neville-Towle, senior producer Brad Goosen, content production manager Brooke Mather and editors Brad Goosen, Adam Khamis, Nick Gulliver, Luke McCauley, Josh Searle and Kelly Searancke.
Music and sound production was handled by Rumble Studios, the DoPs were Brad Conomy and Pat Frischknecht and the sound recordist was Richard Teague.
PR was run by Frank PR and media was handled by Mediacom.
Comment
The A-League is certainly in a very competitive sports marketplace, after all, Australians are known worldwide to be as passionate (and competitive) about sport as any nation on earth.
Despite this, the research shows plenty of space to grow and that the market is far from being sports saturated.
Cleverly, the FFA (the A-League’s owner) knew it was due to negotiate a new media rights deal so the timing of the campaign certainly makes a lot of commercial sense.
This season is crucial to the success of the FFAs stated objective of doubling its $160m (€151m), four-year deal.
And the campaign metrics look positive.
Six rounds into the new season and TV ratings were up 30% on the previous year.
Attendances have also risen by 12%, while club memberships is up 6%.
In total there have been 108,000 new members signed up since the campaign kicked off.
The campaign itself reached 12.5m Australians across TV, cinema, print, radio and outdoor and it generated 80 million (paid and owned) impressions between 3 October 3 and 6 November.
The FFA’s Twitter account activity has increased seven-fold after the campaign’s launch.
A further mark of success is that the campaign even saw fans launch parody Yoshi accounts.
Some clubs even tried to find their own existing fans called ‘Yoshi’.
This campaign demonstrates a clever strategic response to a well researched opportunity: the initiative told a story with a complete beginning-to-end narrative, while its solid creative and media engaged the right youth/family target audience.
Overall it has a sense of genuine authenticity
In our opinion, it is not just the A-League’s best campaign, or even one of Australian sport’s best initiatives, this is a world class campaign in every sense.
Links
Football Federation Australia (FFA) Campaign Site:
http://www.a-league.com.au/youve-gotta-have-a-team
Football Federation Australia (FFA) Web:
http://www.footballaustralia.com.au/
Football Federation Australia (FFA) Twitter:
Football Federation Australia (FFA) Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/AustFootball
BMF:
Frank PR:
Mediacom:
