Timed to leverage the restart of the UEFA Champions League, Manchester City technology partner Cisco launched a new campaign, titled ‘Blue Moon’, to promote its sub-brand Webex which revolved around City fans around the world singing the club’s famous anthem.
Appropriately, the campaign was produced via Webex technology and launched in late July to make the most of spiking interest around the team’s early August Champions League last-16 game against Real Madrid and the Premier League climax.
The campaign was spearheaded by a two-minute hero film featuring a group of global City fans, as well as well known celebrity supporters Jason Manford and Ricky Hatton, plus women’s team stars Steph Houghton and Jill Scott, alongside former men’s team stars and current club ambassadors Micah Richards and Joleon Lescott.
The campaign, which ran across both club and sponsor online platforms, also included a 30-second promotional spot in the build up to Real Madrid game.
Supporting content was led by an additional edit of the film showing City players as they react to the heartfelt message from their fans.
Promoting its virtual conferencing technology, the Cisco initiative was developed by agency Octagon and its sister production company Milkmoney and seeks to act as a show of support from the fans to the City players.
“Over the past several weeks, Cisco Webex has played a critical role in connecting Manchester City and City Football Group coaches, administrators, players and fans during this challenging time,” said Brian Eaton, Director of Global Sports Marketing at Cisco.
“Our goal has always been to create connections to bring joy, engagement and new experiences to the entire ecosystem of people involved with this legendary football club. We will keep working together to forge new opportunities through technology.”
“At Manchester City we are always looking for innovative ways to engage with our global fanbase and have a positive impact on communities around the world,” said Nuria Tarre, Chief Marketing Officer at City Football Group.
“Working with Cisco has enabled us to create virtual connections between the Club and our fans which is even more valuable at this time when we are not able to be together in person. We are committed to harnessing the latest technologies to create exciting experiences for our fans and look forward to working with Cisco to explore this further together.”
“There are very few clubs with an anthem like ‘Blue Moon.’ When you hear it sung by lots of voices together, it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end,” said Ryan Shaw, Creative Director at Octagon UK.
“We know everyone’s missed singing it, and hearing it. With this video we wanted to remain as true as possible to the experience at a live game – that is, starting the song with one fan, before building up to a stand full of voices. Thanks to Cisco we were able to give Manchester City fans their voices back at a time when it’s been taken away, and use technology to connect people in a meaningful way.”
Comment:
We’ve seen plenty of sports marketing activations promoting video conferencing in recent months – most notably Microsoft Teams work with Renault F1 & the NFL.
But this initiative feels a little more property relevant rather than just period relevant than much of the other competitor initiatives.
Links:
Cisco Webex
https://www.instagram.com/webex/
https://www.facebook.com/webex/
https://www.youtube.com/c/webex
Manchester City
https://www.youtube.com/user/mcfcofficial
https://www.facebook.com/mancity
https://www.instagram.com/mancity/
Octagon
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