Ahead of the 2021 UEFA Champions League Final and launched around the climax of the Premier league season, Cisco leveraged its partnership with four City Football Group clubs through a ‘Prep Talk’ content social series which sees young supporters ask players questions via Cisco Webex.
The ‘Prep Talk’ online video series, which debuted on 24 May, spans films featuring young fans and current stars from four City Football Group teams: https://www.mancity.com/, New York City FC, Melbourne City FC and Yokohama F Marinos.
The left-field, eclectic and authentic ideas and questions from the young hosts leads to some genuine and playful interactions with the soccer stars and provides a framework for them to showcase a side of their personalities seldom seen in the mainstream media.
The US multinational technology conglomerate’s campaign was developed by sport and entertainment agency Octagon in harness with its sister production company Milkmoney and Cisco and City markers.
“This past year, Cisco Webex has kept fans of City Football Group clubs connected, and we wanted to build on that by creating some light-hearted opportunities for young fans to engage with players,” explained Cisco’s Sports Marketing Global Lead Ashley Marusak. “Authentic connections have been forged thanks to collaboration, and I think some of the players might have had more fun than the kids!”
“We gave the kids freedom to use their brilliant imaginations and propose a whole host of tips and tricks for the players – all designed to ‘improve’ their performance,” added Octagon Creative Director Ryan Shaw. “Huge thanks to all the clubs involved, to the players and the kids for being such great sports. Who knows, we might have the earliest footage ever recorded of several future managers.”
The films were helmed by Director Richard Hunter and the team working on the activation included Octagon Creative Director Ryan Shaw, Creatives Joe Stuart and Cos Georgiou, VP Consulting Kelly Duffy, Group Director Matt Bailey, Account Directors Mike Haywood and Alexa Parker, plus Project Manager Josh Taylor.
The group working on the campaign at Milkmoney included Head Of Production Roz Barnfield, Executive Producer Samantha Farrance and Producer Lauren Gibbs.
Comment:
Like so many pieces of marketing content fronted by kids, the campaign’s succeed or fail depending on the wit, charm and left-field ideas and comments from the youngsters. And, for the Activative team, this activation is certainly a success.
It also helps that Benjamin Mendy’s (@benmendy23) flat campaign joke went viral on Twitter to his 1.4m followers with more than 12,000 retweets and thousands of likes.
Elles ont RIEN pigé ❤️ https://t.co/JGb6XmkNud
— Benjamin Mendy (@benmendy23) May 24, 2021
This activation follows on from Cisco’s August 2020 ‘Blue Moon Acapella’ activation leveraging its Man City tie-up to promote its Webex offering.
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