When Winter bites, when the snow falls heavily and when the frosts becomes a fixture, fans of the Green Packers know it is that time of year again – time for the annual Dig Out at Lambeau Field.
A new winter campaign from Packers partner Dickies pays homage to this yearly tradition of community support and fan love in the form of a brand film that pays homage to a community that embodies the pride and dignity found in hard work.
The infamous ‘dig out’ of Lambeau Stadium is an event that takes place nearly every year before a home game when hundreds of fans fill the stadium to work together to remove snow by shovel in the open-air stadium.
Outfitted seemingly head-to-toe in Dickies’ durable outerwear – designed to withstand the toughest weather conditions – the commercial sees Packers fans face the ultimate challenge – the weather.
The four-minute ad, which includes the sound of the wintry wind, includes the tagline: “The people here work really hard. They don’t take days off.”
The spot takes the viewer on a journey across the city – home to industrial meatpacking business and paper mills (with genuine companies name checked including Metals Engineering, Alexander’s Sport Fishing Guide Service and Pagel’s Ponderosa Dairy Farm) where the citizens firmly believe that hard work, sweat and elbow grease goes a long way.
(For the Packers that means 13 league championships, four Super Bowls and perhaps the NFL’s deepest kinship between teams, fans and local community.)
And this annual, traditional home field dig out fits in with that community spirit and cultural attitude.
The Wisconsin NFL franchise is the most remote and northerly in the ;league and the team’s home Lambeau Field has been nicknamed ‘The Frozen Tundra’ ever since the so called Ice Bowl between the Packers and the Dallas Cowboys in 1967 (played in temperatures of −15 °F).
The film commissioned by Dickies and created by Rabbit Foot, was edited by Lucky Post’s Sai Selvarajan with color artistry by Neil Anderson.
Comment:
Dickies, the workwear partner of Lambeau Field outfitting groundskeepers, security staff, game-day facilities staff and more, has genuine synergies both with the values of he community and this act of team support.
After all, there is no doubt at all that Green Bay residents and Packers fans know more about frozen tundra than most sports team supporters.
And we salute the emotional power, the community spirit, the passionate fandom and the creative skills in the this campaign.
Of course, the sports business world loves the Green Bay Packers not just for its underdog, small market status, but for another reason too.
The team is the only one in the NFL with a unique, part fan-owned not-for-profit organisation which means its annual figures are a matter of public record and thus provide a unique insight into the (notoriously private) finances of the NFL as a whole.
A welcome relief to some of us, as the NFL is actually not a straightforward limited or public company, but rather than an unusual type of trade association made up of and financed by its 32 member teams (and which up until 2015 it was an unincorporated non-profit association (like a union or a chamber of commerce) exempt from tax.
Links:
Dickies
https://www.facebook.com/dickies
https://www.instagram.com/dickies/
https://www.youtube.com/user/Dickies
Rabbit Foot
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