A late July ‘The Greatest Show On Earth’ brand campaign from sports broadcaster Sky Sports – timed to debut ahead of the 2023/24 Premier League Season – features some of the biggest names from the world’s biggest sports including Jack Grealish, Erling Haaland, Lewis Hamilton, Lauren James, Emma Raducanu, Jon Rahm, Ben Stokes, Ella Toone and more.
The integrated campaign, developed by Sky Creative (Sky’s in-house creative agency) working with Rattling Stick and Framestore, spans TV, DRTV, social, digital, DOOH, OOH, print, radio, cinema and an extensive influencer campaign.
The campaign is anchored by a hero spot titled ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ which comes in 90-, 60-, 30- and 10-second formats and was shot by Daniel Kleinman.
It sees actor Idris Elba play the role of ringmaster and lead viewers through a wonderful world of sport like they have never seen before: featuring spectacular circus acts from many of the biggest names in sport – like Haaland scoring an acrobatic backflip penalty, Rahm miraculously pulling a golf club from his mouth like a sword swallower, plus Stokes and Sophia Dunkley smashing flaming cricket balls out of the Big Top. The spot also sees F1 race cars fly by on a track hovering above the audience’s heads, while Raducanu plays out an epic tennis game in a flaming court in the sky.
These amazing spectacles come together as a celebration of top sport and elite the talent that drives Sky onwards to be more exciting year-after-year.
The spot premiered on 28 July and includes copy urging viewers to: “Roll up roll up. Prepare to be dazzled by the most thrilling tournaments and spectacular sporting events the world has ever known. Sky Sports. The Greatest Show on Earth.”
“Sky Sports is home to the greatest entertainment sport has to offer. With this campaign, we want to celebrate that and dramatise the incredible athletes’ abilities with a visually spectacular campaign,” explained Sky Sports Director Of Marketing Dave Stratton. “This start of season campaign is like no other and we can’t wait for the amazing year of sport ahead for our customers to enjoy.”
Sky Creative ECD Robin Garton added: “The idea of a circus enabled us to show the skills of our sports stars in a way that they’ve never been seen before. But it also opened up a wonderful world of design, tone, style and language, that we’ve revelled in right across the TTL campaign. It’s been an amazing playground for creative craft.”
The campaign was commissioned by a marketing team at Sky Sports which included Marketing Director Dave Stratton, Head Of Marketing Phil Roser, Marketers Tom Oriel and Ezgi Mitchell, plus Marketing Managers Phoebe Kite, Oliver Barnes and Paul Fellows.
The team at the in-house creative unit Sky Creative included Executive Creative Director Robin Garton, Creative Director Rob Welch, Creatives Liam Scott and Piers O’Kelly, Creative Director Chris Dorn, Designers Sam Shaw, Colin Walsh, Max Fox, Lee Ford and Marcia Stewart, Head Of Production Paul Mortimore, Executive Producer Steve Ryan, Producers Al McGee, Connor Winch and Natalie Brunt, Business Team Leader Alison Hackney, Account Directors Chloe Kitter, Nick Hoile, Fran John and Ben Trenchard, plus Head Of Strategy Georgia Bridgwood.
Production was by Rattling Stick with Director Daniel Kleinman, Producer Johnnie Frankel and Director Of Photography Jess Hall, plus additional production and editing by The Assembly Rooms with Photographer Nick Eagle, Editor Eve Ashwell and Edit Assistant Tamara Ishida.
Post Production and VFX by Framestore with Creative Director Kamen Markov, VFX Supervisor Jules Janaud, Compositor Matthew Thomas, CG Supervisor Joel Savage, Lighting Johannes Sambs, Producers Michael Brown and Ben Stell, Coordinators Poppy Chadwick and Chloe Dunn, plus Post Production Assistant Conor Garnett and Colourist Steffan Perry.
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