Ahead of the Autumn internationals, Aldi launch its ‘Play Rugby’ partnership with the Irish Rugby Football Union via an integrated campaign, fronted by former skipper Paul O’Connell, that aims to drive awareness and encourage participation in a brand-backed initiative to get school children more active.
With the aim to encourage Irish primary school kids to participate in regular exercise, to eat healthily and to increase the number of children playing rugby to over 100,000 by 2018, this four-year ‘Play Rugby’ programme is a core pillar in Aldi’s new sponsorship off the IRFU.
It assists teachers, coaches and parents involved in rugby at primary school level to develop rugby programmes in their schools: it provides equipment and tools, plus a training course to improve the standard of coaching.
This joint Aldi/IRFU initiative is spearheaded by a TV spot featuring Irish rugby legend O’Connell’s rousing ‘Fear of God’ speech ahead of Ireland’s 2007 first rugby game in Croke Park.
The commercial, developed in harness with Dublin based creative agency Boys and Girls, is called ‘Aldi Fear of God Speech’ and it explores the story of a young boy (actor Sam Hardy) who idolises O’Connell to such a degree that every morning before rugby practice he recites Paul’s stirring words.
The school kid actually paraphrases part of an O’Connell speech that has gone doen has part of Irish rugby folklore and history: calling for ‘manic aggression’ and to ‘get on the case’ of those ‘not filling a gap’.
The climax of the spot, of course, sees the child finally meet his hero O’Connell.
The ad itself, which was directed by Zak Emerson (with Butter Prouctions), was shot over two days in County Wicklow and incentivises participation with the lure of in-person school training sessions by O’Connell himself.
It initially aired on national TV across Ireland from 18 September and ran on TV, digital and social channels, as well as airing during each of Ireland’s November international matches on their North America Tour.
The Aldi campaign, which benefits from significant, multi-platform investment, is further supported by an outdoor and print advertising phase.
Other strands of the include Aldi’s own in-house customer magazine featuring recipes to encourage good health, plenty of in-store promotions, an Aldi shopping voucher competition and a range of supporting digital and social content assets.
Paul testing the #AldiPlayRugby stars. For your chance to WIN a €60 Aldi Shopping Voucher simply caption this image. pic.twitter.com/tMKYvhlyxc
— Aldi Ireland (@Aldi_Ireland) September 12, 2016
The programme also includes a national rugby festival held in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium in 2017.
The launch event itself – which was also fronted by Irish rugby icon O’Connell, alongside IRFU President Stephen Hilditch, Aldi’s Giles Hurley – took place a the Aldi store in Terenure.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny, the country’s head of government, also gave his personal backing to the launch.
‘Getting the whole country more active requires all of us to work together and I would like to congratulate Aldi for lending its support to the wonderful Aldi Play Rugby initiative,’ said Kenny.
‘We know how important it is for children to be physically active and encouraging them to do so at a young age sets the foundations for later life. I would encourage teachers and parents from schools across the country to get involved in Aldi Play Rugby and help encourage children and young people to be active.’
‘We are delighted to have Paul O’Connell as an ambassador for Aldi Play Rugby,’ comments Aldi Ireland buying director Finbar McCarthy.
‘It is hard to believe his ‘Fear of God’ speech has been inspiring Irish rugby players for almost 10 years and we hope that this new advert helps encourage some of the rugby stars of the future to take up the game and participate in Aldi Play Rugby.’
Activative Comment:
It was only a few weeks before the initiative launched in Spetmber that the super market chain announced its new partnership of the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU).
Part of a sports-led partnership strategy which sees the German-based business try to build deeper, stronger local market ties in new expansion countries through Europe.
Another example of this strategy is Aldi’s Olympic partnership with the Team GB (see our campaign case studies in 2015 and 2016)
Interestingly, rival Lidl is adopting a not entirely disimilar approach in Irelandd through its GAA partnership programme.
At Activative we love O’Connell’s ‘Fear Of God’ speech – it’s certainly arresting and captured our attention.
It seems we are not along: after all, the Aldi ad has racked up a solid 333,939 YouTube views to date.
The only question we’d ask is whether a speech full of bad language is a truly appropriate central pillar for an ad campaign aimed at kids (even if the language is significantly soften in the spot).
Links:
Aldi
https://www.youtube.com/user/AldiIreland
https://plus.google.com/u/0/106689314327446626450
IRFU
https://www.aldi.ie/play-rugby
http://www.irishrugby.ie/news/37987.php#.V9L19PkrLIU
https://www.youtube.com/user/IrishRugbyTVOfficial
https://www.facebook.com/irishrugby/?ref=hl
https://twitter.com/IrishRugby
https://plus.google.com/u/0/110962367934282583078
Boys and Girls
