The NRL’s flagship State Of Origin series is not just a rugby rumble between Queensland and New South Wales, but also a beer battle between XXXX and VB.
The annual rugby league grudge match trilogy divides the nation and the nation’s drinkers.
The two NRL states have partnerships with two leading Australian beer brands: the Queensland Maroon shield and jersey backed appropriately by local brand XXXX (owned by Queensland brewer Castlemain Perkins) and the New South Wales Blues sponsored more oddly by Victoria Bitter (owned by Fosters and forming some kind of odd NSW-Victoria state alliance).
As well as the usual team shirt and shield logo elements of the beer brands’ sponsorship deals, this year also saw the NRL’s marketers ensure the beer battle was part of its digital proposition.
The NRL offered online users the chance to customise their view of its State Of Origin website by inviting fans to click on either the XXXX Queensland shield or the VB NSW shield in order to skin the site in your favourite team’s maroon or blue colours and prioritise stories by team perspective.
A similar tactic, albeit in a very different context, was employed in the UK in July by The Guardian Newspaper which offered its readers a ‘royalist’ and a ’monarchist’ button to customise the paper’s website in a way that either prioritised full coverage of the royal baby or removed entirely its articles about the birth of Prince George.
The NRL also ensured the beer brands were at the centre of its digital ticket sales campaign – State Your #Origin – on its own YouTube Channel.
The campaign leveraged the YouTube Animations feature to enable users to interact with the ticket promo video to customise the footage towards either the XXXX Maroons or the VB Blues.
The initial core ‘State Your #Orign – NSW or QLD?’ web film features both sides equally, but closes with an interactive split screen option for users to click on the half featuring the team they support.
Each click then took viewers to a second video featuring highlights footage of their preferred team scoring tries and winning games followed by relevant team-specific ticket purchasing call-to-action details.
Queensland – XXXX:
NSW – VB:
With beer the most popular drink for rugby league fans (and for players too no doubt) while watching on TV or in-stadium, the partnerships certainly make sense.
Despite its logo, shirt and shield presence, plus its backing for of the VB NSW Cup and sponsorship of the VB Sheds Pre Match Party, quite what Melbournites make of their own favourite local tipple VB being so central to the annual struggle for supremacy between Sydney and Brisbane is open to debate.
Certainly it seems Queensland’s very own XXXX puts a bit more heart and soul and money behind its sponsorship activation – which included a ‘Drink QLD Pride/Wear QLD Pride’ personalisable team shirt campaign, plus state-pride focused TV ads such as this spot featuring Queenslander Billy Moore blessing the beer.
Comment
Last year the State Of Origin beer wars reached fever pitch when VB ambushed its rival by signing up one of its own star players as part of its ‘Mate vs Mate’ footie rivalry program.
It is little wonder that sponsorship competition was so fierce around the 2013 event considering the impressive numbers of viewing the series attracted.
This year’s trilogy set both new State of Origin TV ratings and new live spectator records.
The total live crowd figure over the three matches was 215,883, while the TV viewing figures for games one, two and three respectively were 3.844m, 3.585m and a record breaking 4.035m.
State Of Origin title sponsor Holden also worked heavily with the NRL on leveraging its own rights to ensure it had a huge presence across the NRLs online platforms.
Australian car maker Holden, part of the GM Group, is both the official car company of the National Rugby League and the naming rights partner to the Holden Cup, Holden Kangaroos and the Holden State of Origin.
This year saw Holden replace Toyota (which now sponsors the AFL) as the principle NRL sponsor in a AUS$10m three-year deal, as it restarted its former relationship with the sport as a means of fighting back against increase intense import competition.
There was an element of a return to past marketing strategies about the deal, as during the 1970s Holden was known for its long running an an advertising jingle ‘Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars’:
Which itself was based on Chevrolet’s US ‘Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pies and Chevrolet’ jingle:
In addition to primary online banners, buttons, skyscrapers and webfilm across the NRL’s digital properties, the auto brand also partners with the rights owner on another set of rugby league initiatives.
These include the ‘2013 Holden NRL Dream Team’ fantasy football competition. The official NRL fantasy game is ‘brought to you by Holden Colorado’ and Lone Scout works as the official ‘Holden NRL Dream Team Expert’ offering insider news, late mail and other Dream team content via the NRL website, Facebook (at https://www.facebook.com/nrllonescout) and Twitter (at @lone_scout).
Holden is also the major sponsor of the NRL’s grassroots ‘Holden Monster Raffle’ campaign which also sits within the NRL’s online space.
This initiative sees the NRL and Holden give Australians a to support grassroots Rugby League by purchasing a ticket online in the 2013 Holden Monster Raffle. Every dollar spent goes back to the Grassroots Rugby League Club of the raffle ticket purchaser’s choice, while there are more than $111,000 worth of prizes to be won (including a Holden Colorado, a Holden Cruze).
Since its launch, the raffle has raised over AUS$2m for amateurs clubs.
Holden also runs rugby-related TV and print work from the obvious logo-led sales promotion press ads, to the more subtle sports connections TV spots such as
Links
NRL State Of Origin Website
www.nrl.com/origin/
NSW VB Website
http://www.nswrl.com.au/default.aspx?s=sponsors
Victoria Bitter Website
https://www.victoriabitter.com.au
Queensland XXXX Website
http://www.qrl.com.au/default.aspx?s=sponsors
XXXX Website
Holden Website
Holden NRL Dream Team Website
