As the FIFA World Cup approached kick-off in mid-June, sportswear giant leveraged spiking soccer interest (and ambushed rival and official FIFA partner Adidas) with the launch of an inventive campaign called ‘Make it to Moscow’.
The initiative was an entertaining documentary series of football content that set out to uncover the real footballing culture in four of Russia’s World Cup host cities.
The campaign offers a perspective of the world’s greatest game through the eyes of real players and real fans in a set of video challenges, interviews and games.
The campaign, created in harness with creative agency ZAK (which handled both the creative and production sides of the work) along with media partner GOAL.com, saw New Balance Football send three YouTube stars on a trip to uncover real football in Russia.
The YouTubers – Theo Baker, Charlie Morley and Jemel One Five – were joined by Russian Vlogger Alex Zhuravlev as they travelled to host cities St Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Kazan and Moscow.
The campaign was launched with a 15 June trailer video,
before the group moved on to their city tour. They focused on meeting young fans from around the world, played against local teams in street ‘korobkas’ and got up to plenty of crafty mischief as they approached their Russian city experiences with attitude.
In Kazan, Theo and Charlie took on one another in a challenge to chip balls over a 50-foot fountain, while in a council residential complex on the outskirts of Moscow, Theo challenges a group of locals to a skills challenge.
Indeed, in all four cities, the group played games of 4 on 4 against a local team,
before selecting their best opponent to fly to Moscow to play in a brand created New Balance final.
The initiative is a month-long, multi-channel campaign and the content ran across New Balance Football’s digital and social platforms as well as on the YouTubers’ own channels and across Perform Group’s GOAL.com global media network.
Matt Bennett, Chief Creative Officer at ZAK commented: “We know that this audience wants to see more than just the traditional broadcast experience of the World Cup and just players and teams. Partnering with our YouTubers gave us a great opportunity to look at Russian Football from another perspective and create a real connection with the audience. As for the content, we want to give everyone an on-the-ground view of football culture in Russia and show the reality of the game, not just the gloss of the tournament.”
Kenny McCallum, General Manager, Football at New Balance said: “Approaching this tournament year, we knew we wanted to do something different. Building on our Fearlessly Independent campaign platform, we knew that this approach would be a great way for the brand to express its personality and do something unconventional.”
“The content strand of our activation really forms the crux of the engagement with consumers that we’re hoping to achieve during the tournament and it’s where we as a brand will differ from our competitors,” says New Balance’s Kenny McCallum
“One of the things we worked from was the consumer-out perspective. And that starts with who our consumer is. Our focus is on a team consumer globally who can participate in football and once you get under the skin of that consumer you learn they are very much a digital and social animal.”
McCallum highlights the importance of being able to penetrate the football market using a digital and social approach. The Made it to Moscow series will offer both short- and longer-form video to match whichever platform it’s appearing on, with the sole aim of ensuring the brand “remains present”.
“The choice for a consumer is better than ever and the convergence of digital into live events is changing and will continue to change. The way we look at it is each platform has a role to play and consumers have expectation of those platforms,” McCallum says.
“We’ll always aim to make sure we are always present and in discussion around the major event and around the assets we partner with because ultimately the measure of success is how much a consumer engages in the content you publish.”
After moving in to the football space three years ago, this is New Balance’s first major global World Cup work as it seeks to shake up the football market and steal some market share from the dominant sportswear behomoths.
But New Balance simply doesn’t have the budget or the resources to challenge rivals Adidas and Nike head on – especially when it comes to spend.
So instead it seems sensible to focus on a strategy built around social engagement and Russian football culture and avoid the classic approach to hyping the tournament.
New Balance’s general manager of global football Kenny McCallum says they hope to “gain an edge through the brand’s ‘tactical and focused, striking and unconventional’ approach to the tournament.
“Competing with Adidas and Nike is a perennial challenge, but there are certainly areas and opportunities that you can exploit when you’re not paying the official sponsor ticket price or investing heavily above-the-line,” he explained.
“The competition can get carried away with the ‘hype aspect’ of the tournament. You see dollars tied up in official sponsorship, but we’re looking to engage in a real sense and uncover the cultural sense of football within Russia.”
Has New Balance really moved on from and shaken off its challenger brand status in the sportswear space?
This ranges from its ‘Make It To Moscow’ campaign, it’s ‘Otruska Pack’ Russian-inspired collection and its kit partnership deals with teams such Costa Rica and Panama.
It has also penned five partnerships with key players who we will wearthe brand’s apparel: Tim Cahill (Australia), Sadio Mané (Senegal), Massimo Luongo (Australia), Kendall Waston (Costa Rica) and Jamie Penedo (Panama).
Comment:
What better way to ambush the official partner and approach a property from a rebel and a challenger perspective than to focus on the perspectives of real fans?
An engaging and insightful series that certainly helps set the brand apart from its bigger rivals.
This initiative follows on from the May launch of New Balance’s Russian inspired limited-edition ‘Otruska Pack’ (see case study).
This twin pronged approach continue the strategy New Balance has used since it entered the football space three years ago: New Balance has steadily grown its cumulative audience across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram so much that is now the fourth biggest football brand on those platform in terms of audience size (behind Nike, Adidas and Puma).
Links:
New Balance
https://twitter.com/NewBalance
http://www.facebook.com/Newbalance
https://www.pinterest.com/newbalance/
https://www.instagram.com/newbalance/
ZAK
GOAL.com
