After yet another epic Anglo-Australian sporting battle – in the form of last weekend’s crucial Rugby World Cup Wallabies win – we take the opportunity to look at some of the key tournament partnership activation and sports marketing campaigns from Down Under.
Two stand-out sponsor campaigns offer Australian fans practical help in getting up for the games.
Wallabies sponsor Samsung’s integrated #WeRiseTogether is led by a Israel Folau fronted alarm app, while ARU title sponsor Qantas’ activation is built around a set of ‘Late Night Match Guides’ on YouTube.
Other Australian Rugby World Cup work looks somewhat more vanilla.
Such as that from Wallabies kit partner ASICS’ #StrongerAsOne jersey launch campaign led by classic themes such as performance and unity.
While some campaigns are even more familiar to those in the sponsorship industry as they are simple retreads of pre-existing rugby work from other markets.
One example of this re-working approach is the RWC campaign by ARU’s official vehicle partner BMW called ‘Driving Force’. Which is hewn from re-purposed creative drawn from an earlier England Rugby ‘The Road To Twickenham’ fan road film for the 6 Nations (see case study). This reworked, patriotic Australian campaign – developed in harness with Ogilvy & Mather Melbourne – is led by a TV spot (set to Waltzing Matilda) and is supported by large Out-Of-Home executions, digital work, plus in-store point of sale and CRM strands.
Although most Wallabies fans probably wont mind this RFU retread too much – after all, their team comfortable crushed arch rival and host nation England to send them crashing out of their own tournament.
