Bleacher Report, a digital publisher of sports content and a division of Turner Sports, promoted its coverage of the 2022 FIFA Men’s World Cup through a nostalgic 90s style campaign that seems to draw creative inspiration from Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story.
Launched ahead of the start of the tournament and led by a slightly satirical hero video, the sports and sporting culture site’s campaign draws from the hit movie’s Woody and Buzz Lightyear lead cartoon characters and sees a football fanatic kid in his bedroom playing with his Messi and Ronaldo toys.
After the child leaves his room, the toys spring to life and chaos ensues as the two GOAT rival toys are joined by other famous footballers such as Tottenham Hotspur and Korea star Son Heung-min, Bayern Munich and Canada player and Alphonso Davies and Man City’s Norwegian striker Erling Haaland (who is left in a box presumably because his home country didn’t qualify for the finals).
The ‘Unreal World Cup’ toy animation hype spot dropped across the brand’s own digital and social platforms from Mid-November asking ‘Who will be the last team standing?’
This flagship film is the first of a series of Bleacher Report animated videos and cartoon skit spots rolling out during the competition to echo the on-pitch action and drive conversations around Qatar 2022: these will include episodes of its ongoing ‘The Champions’ animated series as well as a new, shorter-format series called ‘Champions Chat’ and ‘Messi & Ronald’s Last Stand At The World Cup’.
Plus, around 20 quick-turnaround, responsive animated skits are planned to be produced over the course of the World Cup.
According to Bleacher Report Senior Director of B/R Football Brand Strategy Lee Walker: “We have turned to an animation approach for the tournament this time around because we’re known for it and because social platforms are pushing video more than ever, with TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts.”
Indeed, the company reports that animation content drives a 72% lift in cross-platform engagement (shares, likes and comments) per post compared to other B/R Football content and generated eight of the 10 most engaged posts for B/R Football in 2022.
“It’s a mad scramble when the game is going on to hit these social conversations and transfer it into this sort of quick-turn, 60-second animation skits,” Walker continued. “The fact that the animations are parodies also means Bleacher Report doesn’t have to pay expensive rights to include famous athletes’ names. From our perspective, I think it’s important for brands to find a position to talk about the World Cup or participate in that conversation. The content that a fan can engage with… it’s about the personalities. It’s being a little bit of a window into the caricatures of these players.”
Comment
A WarnerBros/Discovery-owned company drawing creative inspiration from Disney’s Pixar…..whatever next?
During the previous Russia 2018 FIFA Men’s World Cup Bleacher Report’s soccer vertical – B/R Football – didn’t have a YouTube channel and TikTok didn’t exist in its current form and so the brand focused on a more Instagram-focused, image-led marketing approach.
But the rise in video and streaming since 2018 saw Bleacher report switch to a video led tactical approach to World Cup content.
Despite the fact that it is often fairly expensive to produce, perhaps animation also helps set B/R Football apart from all the other World Cup content and clutter.
B/R Football boasts 36 million cross-platform followers across social media and generates more than 200 million video views per month. Indeed, B/R Football has had over 1.75 billion video views and 1 billion engagements in 2022 so far in 2022.
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