New Zealand beer Tui is activating its ongoing Black Caps partnership and new ICC relationship at the World Cup 2015 with a $1m (NZ) fan prize for anyone in the crowd who makes a clean one-handed catch from a six hit beyond the boundary during the tournament.
Launched in the days leading up to the tournament in early February, Tui’s ‘Catch A Million’ contest is a collaboration between the brewer, creative agency Saatchi & Saatchi New Zealand and shopper marketing agency ApolloNation.
As a sponsor of New Zealand Cricket and now of the ICC, Tui wants to ensure the fans can get in on the World Cup action as well as the players.
Fans who make a one-handed catch of any ball hit over the boundary rope by a batsman during a game will share the $1m prize pool.
The twist is that this huge cash prize is only on offer to catchers in the crowd actually wearing a 2015 Tui ‘Catch A Million’ T-shirt (retailing for $30 here, or available through an on-pack promotion)
The catch must be clean and must be recorded on television just like this.
Thus the DM Breweries brand’s hopes to see both a sea of Tui’s orange brand colour within the stands during the games, as well as to generate PR and media interest in any winning one-handed catches.
The promotional assets for the Tui campaign were fronted by Black Caps and included promo pictures, as well as TV, social media and in-store work.
As a World Cup warm-up Tui also offered fans a catching practice competition with a similar catch promotion during the ODI Series with Sri Lanka and Pakistan. With winners receiving a ‘money-can’t-buy-experience’ for four that includes travel and tickets to the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 final in Melbourne.
‘It’s fantastic to have iconic Kiwi beer brand Tui on board. We want the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 to be a special and memorable experience for cricket fans and for those who love the excitement of major events,’ says Therese Walsh, Head of New Zealand for ICC Cricket World Cup 2015.
‘Tui’s creativity and passion will play a key role in achieving this.’
This is a re-boot of a similar $100,000 campaign Tui ran during last year’s ANZ Series – which certainly captured the imagination of players, pundits, commentators, fans and the media.
Indeed, the first catch made during that 2013/14 campaign generated massive social media coverage and made international news headlines not only in New Zealand, but also in Australia, the UK, India, Pakistan and the US.
‘Tui knows the occasion of watching cricket is as important as the game itself, and Kiwis don’t need much motivation to make things interesting in the stands,’ explained Tui marketing manager William Papesch.
‘This is a great collaboration with our agency partners – we’re all thrilled to see the campaign in action and really galvanise not just the cricketing community, but the nation.’
Comment
This is live, in-game, crowd participation at its very best
When a campaign becomes such a compelling part of the game that the cricket commentators themselves go crazy about it, then the brand benefits from ‘money-can’t-buy coverage.
And that is certainly the case with this fantastic participatory World Cup initiative.
When a version of this campaign ran last year all the TV commentators got into the spirit – providing massive (and authentic, ‘part-of-the-game’) publicity and even interviewing the first one-handed catch prize winner, Michael Morton, on live TV.
Links
Tui Catch A Million
http://www.tui.co.nz/competitions-and-events/catch-a-million
Tui Website
New Zealand Black Caps Website
ICC Cricket World Cup
http://www.icc-cricket.com/cricket-world-cup
Saatchi & Saatchi NZ
