Bookmaker Betfair leveraged its new player access rights from its recently extended Arsenal partnership package in a ‘Back The Whistleblowers’ campaign that sees three Gunner’s stars aim to raise awareness of the tough jobs faced by football referees.
Striker Oliver Giroud, keeper Petr Cech and defender Nacho Monreal all face-up to the challenge of referring a competitive match featuring ex-Premier League referee Mark Halsey as a player.
The squad members play the role of the ref and make key decisions on a set of match-specific events in a spearhead video running across the brand’s digital and social platforms.
The core spot is being amplified across all the usual channels – including Twitter
Watch as @Arsenal stars Cech, Giroud & Monreal try officiating a game to show how tough a referee's job can be.#BackTheWhistleblowers pic.twitter.com/lJOzN39xDK
— Betfair (@Betfair) March 2, 2017
and Facebook and is further supported by an accompanying ‘Outakes’ spot.
An additional strand of the initiative is a ‘What’s Your Call’ subject/player specific video series which aims to get fans/viewers to comment on the players’ decisions: such as
Activative Comment:
It was back in mid June 2016, ahead of the 2016/17 season, that the Premier League side extended its ‘official betting partner’ deal with Betfair for three more years.
The partnership between the online bookmakers and the north London side will now run until 2019.
Geographically, the partnership spans the UK, Europe, South and Central America.
The extended agreement see Betfair increase its branding at all domestic fixtures at the club’s Emirates Stadium and the company also benefits from more hospitality during match days.
The revised tie-up also gives Betfair access to first team players to use for promotional and marketing activities and this is the part of the rights package that this latest activation emerges from.
With 57,572 YouTube views in its first week the engagement has got off to a solid, yet unspectacular start.
Especially when compared to the social engagement metrics racked up by Betfair’s other recent football team sponsorship activation – the lead Rivaldo disguise stunt spot in its #MagicOf Barca campaign has passed the 330,000 YouTube views mark (see case study).
They could have chosen to play on Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger’s infamous inability to see any controversial referring decisions (other than those which go against his side).
Ref-led activation is on the rise.
Another ‘respect the ref’ campaign rolling out in recent weeks is Tissot’s 6 Nations initiative (see case study).
While other brands have long sponsored referees across multiple sports: such as Specasavers (see case study) and Emirates.
Links:
Betfair
https://www.youtube.com/user/Betfair
https://www.facebook.com/Betfair
Arsenal
https://www.facebook.com/Arsenal
https://www.instagram.com/arsenal/
https://www.youtube.com/arsenal
https://plus.google.com/+arsenal/
http://cn.arsenal.com/newsdetail.php?id=32
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20151106/arsenal-on-snapchat
