New Balance and AS Roma celebrated their new kit sponsorship with a digital augmented reality game called ‘Run Roma’ running alongside the social announcement and PR campaign.
Promoted socially across the club and the sports apparel maker’s social platforms and accessed via Roma’s Instagram channel, the animated gaming activation transports supporters into the heart of the Italian capital city and enables the global Roma fanbase play their own part in kicking off the new sponsorship.
The activation, which saw New Balance Football team up with creative agency Ear to the Ground and its Fan Intelligence approach, is a digital-first initiative aimed at engaging global youth football culture.
The Run Roma game uses augmented reality technology and takes players out onto the bustling city of Rome on Instagram: and enables fans to race through the streets (as a wolf (the club and city’s animal emblem) avatar, collect club assets and avoid obstacles to unlock the new sponsorship announcement.
The official partnership announcement itself was made simultaneously on the New Balance and Roma Twitter and Instagram feeds.
Di giorno e sera, alza al cielo la bandiera.
Ciao, @OfficialASRoma!#NBFootball #WeGotNow @newbalance pic.twitter.com/tFjsYkkey6
— New Balance Football (@NBFootball) February 16, 2021
While the Run Roma game itself is accessed also via the club’s Insta platform.
Per celebrare la collaborazione, #ASRoma e @newbalance hanno lanciato un gioco in realtà aumentata utilizzabile su Instagram
➡️ https://t.co/oZclDW8k4n#ASRoma @NBFootball pic.twitter.com/DjFE8u5eBo
— AS Roma (@OfficialASRoma) February 16, 2021
The ‘Run Roma’ activation is also supported by a team of high-profile Roma supporter influencers: including Riccardo Mandolini, Cecilia Cantarano and Italian rapper Gemello, as well as by global grassroots footballers such as East London’s ‘Baiteze Squad’.
“This is a landmark sponsorship for us and an extremely exciting moment for New Balance Football,” said New Balance Football’s Global Senior Marketing Manager Nicola Jones. “At New Balance we always think and act uniquely, ensuring fans are at the heart of everything we do. Tapping into Fan Intelligence allowed us to enter a new space with AS Roma from the outset; reinventing how to announce a new club sponsorship on social whilst injecting fun into the campaign. We look forward to launching the first ever New Balance and AS Roma bespoke kits in the summer”.
Ear To The Ground Managing Director Richard Adelsberg added: “Engagement with AR game filters has rocketed amongst youth audiences in recent months and off the back of Fan Intelligence, we realised that we needed to bring A.S. Roma fans closer to the city and club they miss greatly – so we landed on a digital idea ‘Run Roma’ which is grounded in the streets of Rome and connects the club’s vast fanbase around the world”.
Comment:
New Balance became the new Official Kit Supplier from the beginning of the 2021/22 Serie A season in the Boston-based sportswear brand’s first club tie-up in the Italian football market.
The Massachusetts based company worked with independent creative agency Ear to the Ground on the activation: which marks one of the early campaigns to emerge from the partnership since the agency was appointed to lead New Balance Football’s global strategies and creative using its bespoke Fan Intelligence model to consult and co-create ideas with ‘culturally led’ fans.
Links:
New Balance
AS Roma
Ear to the Ground
https://www.eartotheground.agency/
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