Puma celebrates its launch campaign for Arsenal’s new 2015-16 home kit with a 15 June campaign ‘#PoweredByFans – #Forever Arsenal’ led by both a short online film and a live event at the Emirates.
The short film, posted online at Puma’s website (www.puma.com/arsenal) and screened at the Emirates stadium event, aims to celebrate the role of fans in the team’s performance.
It follows supporters around the country as they ‘power up’ the Arsenal team with their enthusiasm.
It culminates with the players walking onto the pitch for a game while the the growing anticipation of the fans manifests itself as a source of their power.
With 285,461 YouTube views in its first week, there certainly seems to be some powerful campaign connection.
Thus, through Puma’s web platform fans from all round the world were able to watch the kit launch and be part of the action and Puma streamed the live show from the Emirates on YouTube.
Club legend Thierry Henry fronted the Monday evening live launch event with help from DJ Gilles Peterson.
The former Arsenal and France captain kicked the evening event off by leading around 1,000 fans in a series of Arsenal terrace songs (typical chants about the North Bank and Clock End).
Before the kit was unveiled, co-presenter Thierry Henry got in and amongst the crowd to ask questions and take selfies with the fans, adding to the fan engagement feel to the campaign.
The chants were followed by a (red) light show heralding the reveal of first-team players Hector Bellerin, Santi Cazorla, Tomas Rosicky, Nacho Monreal and Danny Welbeck wearing the team’s new home kit for next season.
Speaking about the new kit, Cazorla said:
‘Our fans are incredible and play a really big role in our performance and motivation. Being at the Emirates this evening and seeing so many of them chanting and supporting us was really great. There was so much passion in the crowd, it reminds us how lucky we are to have these supporters. The kit has a lovely design, classic like an Arsenal kit should be with some very nice design features.’
Presenter Nigel Mitchell asked the fans at the Emirates and those watching on the live stream to use the hashtag ‘#ForeverArsenal’ – and it was tweeted more than 13,000 times during the 30-minute live show.
Also on Twitter @pumafootball released behind-the-scene images from the event and also responded to Arsenal fans’ questions and feedback on next season’s kit.
Backstage at The Emirates. http://t.co/trcVssmvex #ForeverArsenal pic.twitter.com/NtRLR8V2LO
— PUMA Football (@pumafootball) June 15, 2015
@tcmawerera Wait until you see the Away Kit. More great things to come. #ForeverArsenal
— PUMA Football (@pumafootball) June 15, 2015
The live event film has racked up another 221,025 YouTube views thus far.
Both films also drive fans to the online pre-order purchasing platform to ‘Click here to pre-order your new home kit at ArsenalDirect.com’.
The new kit and full fanwear collection is available in-store from 25 June and
The shirt itself, which sticks with the team’s traditional red-and-white – which first appeared in 1933- now sees bold stripes running horizontally on the main body and features a grandad collar and gold piping trim around the collar edge.
Puma’s ‘Powered by Fans’ (running uner the #FanPower’ hashtag) Arsenal kit launch campaign aims to represent and reflect the importance of the supporters to the club and players and explore the crucial role supporters’ play in the on-pitch performance of the team.
The kit launch marketing strand – which aims to represents this energy and how it can motivate and energise the players – is one strand in this wider big idea.
The campaign was developed with Puma’s team and agencies GBH (Gregory Bonner Hale), with production work from Outsider, plus post production by Jungle, editing from Stitch Editors, music by MeanRed and media planning by Puma itself.
Other strands of the ongoing #FanPower campaign includes a set of joint player/fan vox-pop style online interviews, such as early June’s Oliver Giroud spot (which focuses on away fans and sees Giroud reflect on 18 January 2015’s amazing match).
and a Santi Carzola led online film (focusing on the Emirates home crowd and his brace of goals in the 13 December 2014 game
Comment
This latest strip is Puma’s second for Arsenal since it replaced Nike (who had been kit supplier since 1994) and signed a £150m five-year deal last year.
The launch was impressive, glitzy, engaging and it neatly dovetailed a live physical experience with cyber real-time streaming and other digital assets.
But was it genuinely quite as ‘powered by fans as it could have been?
It’s not clear from the creative and content that Arsenal fans were genuinely behind most aspects of the launch.
Did they have considerable input into the kit design itself?
Did they help plan and execute the live event or the launch film?
One also wonders whether this might have been a great opportunity (with no need to consider any official Premier League broadcast rights) to trial other new live platforms – such as real-time video blogging via Periscope or Meerkat – and engage fans over these expanding channels.
Perhaps even applying the fan power principle through consumer-created content and having fans themselves Periscoping the live event to offer multiple angles and fans perspectives?
Links
Puma Arsenal Website:
http://uk.puma.com/en_GB/arsenal-fc
Puma Arsenal Kit Purchase Platform:
Puma Website:
Puma Twitter:
Arsenal Kit Launch Website:
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150615/arsenal-and-puma-unveil-new-home-kit
Arsenal Kit Purchasing Platform:
GBH:
Outsider:
Jungle:
http://www.junglestudios.co.uk/
