To kick-off its new partnership with Manchester in February 2020, Mondelēz International brand Cadbury launched a second wave of its ongoing ‘Donate Your Words’ campaign (in harness with Age UK) – dedicated to tackling the problem of loneliness amongst the elderly – through an on-pitch event and via supporting video and PR content to raise awareness of the problem, encourage fans to chat more to older people and boost awareness of the new sponsorship.
Territory: UK/Global
Agency: MKTG, VCCP, Elvis & Golin
Objective
A pillar of Cadbury’s positioning is its brand belief that there is a generous instinct inside us all – brought to life through its ‘there’s a glass and a half in everyone’ tagline – and this idea has underpinned most of its brand campaigns since 2018
In 2019, working with charity Age UK, Cadbury launched a UK cause campaign called ‘Donate Your Words’ which emerged from research finding that 1.4m older people in the UK struggle with loneliness and that 225,000 regularly experience an entire week without talking to anybody at all.
Cadbury’s idea was that just a few words from anyone could make a meaningful difference to their mental wellbeing and happiness, so the campaign’s primary goal was to raise awareness of the issue and encourage everyone across the UK to ‘donate their words’ by having a conversation of any form with an older person.
Cadbury tasked its agencies’ team to leverage its three-year partnership with Manchester United FC, which began in January 2020, to support a second football-led stage of the ‘Donate Your Words’ campaign.
The core aim was to engage the club’s 1.1bn global community to raise awareness of the problem and drive action to help solve it.
Activation
At the heart of the activation was the objective of creating a conversation between those older people in the UK isolated by loneliness and Manchester United (and its fans and community) by showing how a small conversation can make a big difference.
Cadbury’s marketers and its agency team worked with the club to utilise a range of its partnership assets including access to players from the men’s and women’s teams, digital media amplification and matchday access led by a ‘Guest of Honour’ experience for 11 local elderly Manchester United fans.
This was captured through a series of long-form, video-led content pieces which featured the players (including the current skippers of the men’s and women’s sides) donating their words to these older fans and the creative was distributed across paid, owned and earned media channels including via the club’s multi-channel, global digital ecosystem.
The partnership was announced on 12 February and launched on Sunday 23 February at the home game between Manchester United and Watford with a campaign integration built around former skipper, club legend and current ambassador Bryan Robson hosting a group of elderly ‘Guests Of Honour’ (selected by the club, brand and charity partner) onto the pitch for a unique Old Trafford experience.
This saw Cadbury and Manchester United swap the more usual child mascots for the 11 elderly guests of honour who shook hands with every member of the starting 11 to make the problem of elderly loneliness as visible as possible.
The 11 participants – who were all locals aged between 61 and 87 who were committed Manchester United fans – were chosen by charity partner Age UK.
The live on-pitch event was supported across the club and brand’s channels, while, without being asked, several current and former players also shared and spread the campaign content and messages across their personal channels:
“This partnership feels like a natural way to tell different stories for both brands,” he explained Cadbury Associate Marketing Director Colin O’Toole (who leads the Premier League partnerships at Mondelēz International). “If older people are going to a match one week, it is awful to think they may not hear another voice until the next game the following week. As a brand Cadbury has a long heritage of bringing people together through our products and in caring for the communities. For instance, we were among the first companies in the UK to offer an old-age pension.”
“We’re pleased to start our global partnership with Cadbury by supporting their ‘Donate Your Words’ campaign,” added Manchester United Director Of Partnerships Sean Jefferson. “The club is encouraging all fans to give a few moments of their time to speak to older people around them who might welcome a thoughtful conversation. Any small gesture and interaction can play a part in helping to help tackle loneliness among our older generation.”
Outcome
According to agency, brand and club, the activation ‘was a remarkable success’ and reached hundreds of millions of people not only in the UK but around the world.
It also delivered on all three key objectives: boosting awareness of both the issue of elderly loneliness and isolation, driving awareness of the Cadbury/club partnership and encouraging the people of Great Britain to donate their words and thus reinforce Cadbury’s brand belief that there is a glass and a half in everyone.
The campaign reached an online audience of 2.36bn, generated 19m impressions on Manchester United platforms, with 3.75m video views, 11,300 fans ‘loved’ the content, 358,000 interactions, and player posts drove 335,000 video views contributing 66,000 interactions.
The event drove global exposure and awareness of the problem and featured across UK media running in 80 publications and programmes (including on BBC Breakfast, the BBC website, The Guardian, The Manchester Evening News, Sky News and across the mainstream, football and marketing media).
Post campaign research of Manchester United fans found that:
> 91% were ‘much more aware of the partnership’
> 91% were ‘much more likely to start a conversation with an older person’
> 86% were ‘much more likely to call an older relative’
> 78% were ‘much more likely to check in on an older neighbour’
> 37% were ‘much more likely to buy a Cadbury product’
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