Movistar Blends Two-Wheel Rider Properties In Combined Pro-Cycling & MotoGP Campaign

A clever two-minute clip saw Movistar coral a posse of its partner property riders together for a campaign blending its backing of Pro-Cycling and MotoGP teams (and a venue title sponsorship too).

The Spanish telco initiative brings together four of the world’s best riders – cyclists Nairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde, plus motorbike legends Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi – for a campaign that aims to develop synergies between the brand and its Movistar Pro Cycling and Movistar Yamaha MotoGP teams.

In addition to leveraging shared brand/property/athlete synergies, another aim of the campaign was to celebrate the extension of the brand’s three-year contract extension (to 2019) with both Quintana as a brand ambassador and with the whole cycling team.

In September, following his Tour of Spain victory and before the start of the Gran Premio Movistar de Aragón, Movistar brought Quintana together with team-mate Valverde and former MotoGP champions Rossi and Lorenzo at the Motorland race circuit (near Zaragoza).

Movistar also holds the naming rights to the Grand Prix at the circuit ensuring that the creative developed for the campaign included the brand logo spread across the background landscape.

The campaign was led by a spearhead two-minute spot posted on the cycling team’s digital and social sites

and the MotoGP team’s channels too.

The filming and photography, which featured drone cameras and striking scenery spanning skyscapes and mountain ranges, resulted in a warm-hearted core campaign video in which the four riders meet, socialise, share expertise and ride the track.

A humorous pit-stop sequence sees Yamaha mechanics perplexed by the Canyon road bikes, while the serenity and sweat of the bike riders is shattered as the Yamahas hurtle by.

The central piece was supported by a ‘Making Of’ video

and digital and social content too amplified by the teams,

Top 2-wheels Movistar athletes kick off Aragon GP. @ValeYellow46, @Lorenzo99, @NairoQuinCo and @alejanvalverde enjoy Motorland pic.twitter.com/3jagQP9Uff

— Yamaha MotoGP (@YamahaMotoGP) September 22, 2016

the series property owner,

Meanwhile at the #AragonGP.. @lorenzo99 & @ValeYellow46 get acquainted with @NairoQuinCo & @alejanvalverde @MotoGP Insta story for more pic.twitter.com/Rwc9qyJhx6

— MotoGP™ (@MotoGP) September 21, 2016

and the athletes themselves.

Día fantástico con @NairoQuinCo y los monstruos @ValeYellow46 y @lorenzo99 en @AragonMotorLand. Suerte en Aragón. pic.twitter.com/zh4aZCD2JA

— alejandro valverde (@alejanvalverde) September 22, 2016

Most of the assets carry the tagline: ‘elige todo’ (‘choose everything’) – a Movistar triple-play (broadband, telephone and TV) bundle package.

Comment

Blending together multiple sponsored properties and leveraging mixed sport (and entertainment) assets is an emerging trend across the partnership space.

While blending properties and their associated assets can be effective – by potentially multiplying star power, publicity and combining audience reach – logistics and timing can certainly be tricky: as shown by the narrow window Movistar had to work in to produce this campaign.

In fact, Movistar say that the idea first emerged when the window of opportunity was identified a full 12 months before the shoot.

The double property approach enabled Movistar to promote, spread and share the content across multiple platforms and leverage multiple events: these included not only Movistar’s own platforms such as Movistar and Movistar Plus, but also the Movistar Yamaha GP and the Movistar Team’s channels, as well as property owner MotoGP itself.

For example, MotoGP itself used the video globally to promote its next race and the expanded exposure enabled Movistar to achieve results it describes as ‘more international than anything else’ it had ever produced (particularly across South America).

On Facebook alone, the campaign’s six posts have racked up more than one million views and 20,000 shares on Facebook alone with just six posts.

Eight individual tweets generated a further 11,200 Twitter views and 1,200 retweets.

While a cut-down, one-minute version of the film notched up 25,000 times on Instagram (and 179,000 likes).

On the Movistar Pro Cycling team’s YouTube channel the film was watched 22,000 times (not bad for cycling) and on the MotoGP team’s YouTube channel it added a further 20,000 views.

The visual imagery and audio soundtrack takes a similar creative approach to other Movistar pro-cycling content pieces that have appeared this season – such as this October 2016 ‘#YoSoyMovistarTeam’ spot celebrating ‘Four Years At The Summit’.

Now, if Movistar could only sponsor some horse racing and rodeo (and partner up with Uber perhaps) then they could really gather together a proper posse of riders.

(Of course, it seems churlish to suggest that it is a bit of a shame that rival Marc Marquez (Honda) and Chris Froome (Team Sky) beat Movistar’s partners to win both cycling and MotoGPs biggest 2016 events.)

Links

Movistar Pro Cycling Team YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/MovistarTeam

Movistar Pro Cycling Team Twitter:

https://twitter.com/movistar_team

Movistar Pro Cycling Team Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/movistar_team/

Movistar Pro Cycling Team Soundcloud:

https://soundcloud.com/movistar-team

Movistar Pro Cycling Team Web:

http://www.movistarteam.com/

Movistar Pro Cycling Team Google+: