Early July saw Chelsea FC launch its new Blue Fuel nutrition service through a multi-channel campaign developed by creative agency The Brooklyn Brothers called ‘Fuel The Way You Play’.
Blue Fuel is a combined service and product nutrition range, developed by the club’s sports scientists and coaches, takes a personal approach tailored to each individual athlete consumer through specially-designed products, personalised meal plans a central app and subscription services (starting from £25 per month).
The offering, which was attested on the men’s a women’s first teams as well as with older academy graduates, spans supplements, sachets, powders, energy boosters, gummies and bars and more than 250 meal plans and it is pitched as a fully comprehensive nutrition offering to help people at all sporting levels to reach their maximum potential.
The campaign’s approach is to cut through clutter and noise of sports nutrition category marketing and eschew the usual nutrition/beauty industry baffling scientific jargon and complex consumer messages.
The campaign – which spans social, digital, print, outdoor and influencer marketing – aims to reflect ‘the more human and democratic positioning of Blue Fuel’ and to present the brand in an honest, straightforward and accessible way.
It is fronted by a team of genuine, authentic sportsmen and sportswomen (rather than casting models) who feature in the video and photography assets and is spearheaded by a hero spot.
From professional basketball player to marathon runner. @KieronAchara's goal to be the best on and off court is his fuel.
What's yours? #MyFuel pic.twitter.com/VnC3qM4nSy
— Blue Fuel (@BlueFuel) July 9, 2020
Blue Fuel’s launch has coincided with the return of professional and amateur athletics and sport and thus is being pitched in some spaces as a tool to help athletes get back to their full playing capacity.
So the approach taps into the fact that with so many sports competitions postponed or cancelled, both athletes of all types have had to look to imaginative ways of staying fit under lockdown and Blue Fuel offers a new utility for this purpose.
“At a time when the needs of sportspeople have never been more specific, there couldn’t be a greater need for an expert sports nutritional service that’s tailored to every individual player,” commented Blue Fuel Senior Marketing Manager Massimo De Zordo.
The campaign, the first work from The Brooklyn Brothers for the club since the agency was appointed earlier in the year following a competitive creative pitch, was conceived and created by an agency team which included Global Chief Creative Officer George Bryant, Executive Creative Director Simon Poett, Head Of Strategy Will Sansom, Busiiness Director Adam Newman, Head Of Social Shelley Portet, Creatives Sophie Bastow-Dormon, Laila Milborrow and Didz Parker, Designer Oreoluwa Ayoade, Head Of Artistic Production Sarah Kavanagh and Producer Sam Dowling.
Comment:
Blue Fuel is the first of what is expected to be a series of commercial spin outs – including services and products – from the club’s new Chelsea Digital Ventures arm.
Whilst clubs great and small have been expanding their non-footballing product offerings for many years now, several are currently focused on rebranding (see our July 2020 case study on Rangers FC’s reworked brand) and refreshed platforms to reposition themselves as entertainment properties rather than football clubs (see our case study on AC Milan’s new tie-up with Roc Nation).
The launch of Blue Fuel shows that Chelsea is one of the clubs at the front of the pack when it comes to not simply repositioning and exploring new opportunities, but actually bringing them to market.
Indeed, in recent months Chelsea has also shown that it is prepared to lead the way in new strategic approaches to partnerships and marketing with its new alternative, short-term, tactical partnership packages such as its campaign with Duracell earlier in 2020 (see case study).
Links:
Blue Fuel
https://www.facebook.com/BlueFuelOfficial/
https://www.instagram.com/bluefuelofficial/
Chelsea FC
https://www.youtube.com/user/chelseafc
https://www.facebook.com/ChelseaFC/
https://www.instagram.com/chelseafc/
The Brooklyn Brothers
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