To celebrate the 30th anniversary of arguably the most famous Australian rugby league ad campaign ever, the NRL relaunched an updated version of Tina Turner’s ‘Simply The Best’ in its new 2020 season kick-off campaign.
Tina Turner became the face of rugby league in Australia during the late 1980s and early 1990s when her hit song became synonymous with the NRL through an iconic ad campaign by agency Hertz Walpole (Sydney).
To promote the start of the new 2020 season, the NRL has brought Turner back to its marketing with an updated version of the original campaign featuring current star players and paying tribute to iconic moments from the past three decades.
The campaign, developed with agency The Monkeys, is fronted by a hero commercial which begins with a young Cameron Smith in his family living room back in 1990 watching the original ad and then rolls through some of the best moments in Grand Finals history.
The spot also stars several of the NRL’s biggest stars from today such as Tyson Frizell, the Trbojevic brothers and Latrell Mitchell.
The campaign was created for the NRL Head of Marketing and Brand Peter Jarmain by creative agency The Monkeys (Sydney) where the team included Executive Creative Director Vince Lagana, Creative Directors Dan Fryer and Stuart Alexander, Copywriters Dan Fryer, Stuart Alexander and Michael Dawson, Producer Wendy Gillies, Group Account Director Ciaran Miller-Stubbs, Account Director Anna Willis, Senior Account Manager Ruth Peck and Senior Planner Charlotte Marshall.
The production company was Good Oil Films with the spot helmed by Director Stuart McIntyre, with Producers Chana McLallen and Sam Long, casting was by Natalie Jane Harvie @ Citizen Jane, music from Tim Bridge of Sonar Music, the music supervisor was Anton Trailer (Trailer Media), with Editor Simon Price and Phoebe Taylor @ Arc Edit, plus Flame Artist Eugene Richards @ Arc Edit and grade from Alter Ego (Toronto).
Comment:
The NRL’s 2019 ‘A New Era Begins’ launch campaign set out to start a new era for the league after a litany of scandals and challenges (see case study), while 2018’s ‘This Is How We League’ was built around inspiration from the culture of the modern game and what it means to fans (see case study) and 2017’s ‘Let’s Make History’ was more nostalgic and retrospective in its approach (see case study).
Links:
NRL
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https://www.youtube.com/user/NRL
The Monkeys Sydney
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