Leveraging the team’s 2019/20 new jersey launch, BMO – the primary sponsor of the MLS club Montreal Impact – sought to give back to the football community and its fanbase by exchanging fans’ old jerseys for the team’s new ones and then gave a second life to the old jerseys they collected by transforming the material into football nets donated to youth soccer programs in Quebec.
Territory: Canada
Agency: FCB Montreal, SOMA, UM and Agence FDM
Objectives
BMO has been the sponsor of the Montreal Impact since the team’s inaugural Major League Soccer (MLS) season in 2012 and the partnership runs in parallel with the banks other two tie-ups with the other two Canadian MLS clubs the Toronto FC and Vancouver Whitecaps.
The bank’s sponsorship and soccer strategy is led nationally, regional marketers are tasked with echoing and amplifying the national strategy in local markets through local assets which would drive brand affinity, boost engagement and enhance consideration.
For soccer, the national approach was based around ‘breaking through the national hockey barrier/obsession’ by engaging club fans and the wider soccer community by demonstrating that BMO were more than just a sponsor, but that the brand was ‘a true fan that lived and breathed the game just like the club’s most committed supporters’.
During the 2019/20 season, BMO’s local marketing team briefed agency FCB to leverage its Montreal Impact sponsorship to bring to life the bank’s umbrella commitment to communities and the environment by ‘giving back to the teams fans, the wider soccer community and particularly young players’.
The brief also aimed to thank fans for their support and give them a ‘little brand love’ and to inspire young players, to keep them on the field and help them achieve their goals.
According to BMO Senior Brand & Sponsorship Marketer (Quebec) Mélanie Miron, the activation was further informed by research that found that many local soccer pitches for youngsters had goals either without nets, or with torn and unusable nets.
Activation
The multi-agency, brand and club marketing team answered the brief with a ‘Jersey Swap’ exchange programme that was built on BMO’s three-year-old ‘FanFini/Ultimate Fan’ platform. The activation took a two-stage approach: first by exchanging fans’ old jerseys for new ones, and then by giving a second life to these old jerseys in a meaningful way.
The campaign was developed by BMO, agency FCB Montreal and production company SOMA, with media handled by UM and PR by Agence FDM.
One challenge was to come up with an activation which would create a bond between the bank, Quebec sports fans and Impact supports and get them excited about soccer when so much of the population is obsessed with hockey.
The resulting activation was based on the insight that nothing that drives passion for a local team than feeling like you are part of it and that it is doing something positive for your community, so BMO positioned itself as a committed soccer fan and gave its consumers and the local community a chance to feel like they were also part of the home team.
The season-long, 20-week ‘Jersey Swap’ campaign began with the February launch of the Impact’s new black and blue home kit. BMO then held events in March and April inviting 500 fans to exchange their old jerseys for a new one.
This phase was publicised through an integrated campaign to gain fan attention and invite them to the jersey swap with at-game live stunts, high visibility TV, social, digital and OOH executions and an EA FIFA game app integrations.
Then the team worked with Quebec designer Christine Grenier to transform the old jerseys into regulation soccer nets for Montreal’s youth leagues. Grenier worked with engineer Lucas Abouchaar and a team of local designers, artists and crafts people to invent a new weaving technique (and equipment) to turn the old jersey fibres (which had the club’s history embedded into their fibres) into local nets to inspire young people and enhance their own play.
All of the stages were filmed in a documentary style to create content spanning TV, website integrations and social executions which were rolled out through the 2019/20 season. These included TV, digital and live activations celebrating the creation, installation and use of the new nets (included a 90-second hero film deployed across brand-owned platforms, regional television and during an Impact game shown live on TVA Sports.
The campaign was created for BMO by a team at agency FCB, Montreal which included VP & Head Of Creative Sylvain Dufresne, Art Director Sebastien Robillard, Copywriter Joel Letarte, Project Lead Paul-André House, Strategists Marie-Nathalie Poirier and Audraine Houel, with Director Le Ged and Photographer John Londono.
Outcome
In terms of direct participation, 500 fans took part in the jersey swap and around 20,000 local young soccer players regularly play on the local community pitches and thus use the nets.
During the campaign, BMO’s website saw an 800% YoY rise in traffic, while in terms of media value the activation led to 12 TV programme integrations (including 17 minutes of premium, live programming).
Amongst the agency and brand shared results were details of how the campaign boosted BMO’s brand equity:
> 40% YoY rise in ‘favourability’
> 35% YoY rise in ‘consideration’
> 98% fan ‘appreciation rate’
The initiative also won a 2020 Clio ‘Sports Partnerships/Sponsorships’ Bronze award and the MLS’ Best Sponsorship Campaign’ award.
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