Launched in mid June as the World Cup got under way, online retailer Wish leveraged the tournament with an integrated, global campaign that explores just what happens when famous footballers (not playing at the World Cup) have too much time on their hands.
The answer, at least according to the brand, is gardening and topiary, pool parties, cake decorating and styling hair.
Fronted by a set of athlete ambassadors who sides didn’t qualify for Russia 2018, the campaign is spearheaded by a series of spots which promote the company’s low cost products and offers through comically daft creative that shows the pastimes that these players use to the fill the World Cup void.
From idle drone piloting to pool dj’ing and bush modelling, each player passes along pictures and videos of his new passion to the next: thus these Instagram messages all feature hobbies that require buying plenty of gear from Wish.
The retailer, which sells direct from the manufacturer in 80 countries, generated $1bn in revenue last year.
Humorous in tone and leveraging famous footballer faces from Italy, Wales, Holland and the US (all countries which failed to qualify for this year’s World Cup), all the commercials explore the title theme ‘Having time on your hands means shopping like the pros on Wish’ .
is supported by a series of player-specific spots starring the likes of Italian goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon,
Welsh winger Gareth Bale,
Dutch striker Robin Van Persie
USA keeper Tim Howard,
and Chilean goalie Claudio Bravo.
The core creative pieces are further supported by other social spots starring some players who are front and centre in Russia like Neymar
and Pogba.
The 30-second spots are running internationally on television and across digital and social media.
As well as running on the brand’s own channels, there creative is further socially amplified by the players themselves using the campaign’s #TimeOnYourHands hashtag.
If you’ve got time on your hands, then we’ll make it worthwhile. See what@GarethBale11 @paulpogba @TimHowardGK @C1audioBravo @Persie_Official @gianluigibuffon are up to! #TimeOnYourHands https://t.co/90PJa4rBrL
— Wish Shopping (@WishShopping) June 12, 2018
The initiative, the brand’s first global campaign, was developed in-house with help from London agency Archers Mark.
The ads, which were shot on location in Turin, Madrid, Paris, Manchester and Amsterdam. Were helmed by Wish’s creative director Martin Rossetti.
“Showing superstars in their home environment is a great way to engage fans, plus it makes them vulnerable and human,” said Sam Jones, head of partnerships at Wish.
“Football generally is such a good fit for Wish as we are huge in Europe and South America where football dominates.”
Comment:
The Activative team can’t help but smile at this campaign.
And it seems we are not alone.
The central spot notched up 2.6m views on the brand’s YouTube page in its first 10 days.
Plus, by the end of the group stages of Russia 2018 it was the San Fransisco-based shopping app that was winning the World Cup ad tournament according to System 1’s emotional engagement data.
The System1 stats monitor how UK consumers respond to ads by having them register their emotional responses by showing them eight different faces: contempt, disgust, anger, fear, sadness, neutral, happiness, surprise.
The 28 ads shown to the group at the half way stage in the competition were then weighted for business effect and scored between one and five stars based on ROI growth (one star representing 0% growth and five stars 3% growth).
The Wish campaign scored 76.5% on ‘emotion into action’ (the highest of any ad in the ranking) and also scored three out of five stars.
The data shows that ads have generally not resonated that well this year though, with none of those tested scoring a four or five, and just four ads achieving three stars. By comparison, nine Christmas ads tested using a similar methodology achieved the top score.
Its previous sports related marketing has included sponsoring the UFC, the Mayweather-McGregor mega fight and a jersey partnership with the NBA’s LA Lakers (see case study).
Links:
Wish
https://twitter.com/WishShopping
https://www.facebook.com/wish/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS0V-1JLtAV3iihfzHcdhfg/featured
https://www.instagram.com/wish
Archers Mark
