03/09/2017

Pace Setters & Slow Starters: Canterbury’s P& & Fan Engagement Aviva Premiership ‘Predictions’

Following a summer activating around its British & Irish Lions partnership, Canterbury leveraged the start of autumn’s new Aviva Premiership Rugby season with a PR prediction promotion.

 

As clubs, players, fans and brands again refocus around northern hemisphere’s club rugby, the rugby-focused apparel brand aims to offer some insights into the new Aviva Premiership Rugby season

 

The initiative, based on a branded ‘Ultimate Guide To The Season’, aims to offer some insights into which team will triumph, what the tightest match-ups will be, which players have put in the hours of pre-season preparation and who is still recovering from the summer.

 

Canterbury aims to engage fans with ‘an expert insight into the highs-and-lows they can expect over the next nine months’ based on historic match and performance data and head-to-head past results.

 

This part PR, part fan utility project sees Canterbury predict the seasons key talking points: which team is most likely to win their season opener, who the slow and fast starters are and which games you should be plotting in your diary if you’re looking for high-scoring entertainment.

 

The guide analysis the following season strands: First Game of the Season, Fast and Slow Starters,

Home Advantage and Key Diary Fixtures.

 

The brand’s full guide to the season is hosted on a digital hub at https://www.canterbury.com/clubhouse, while selected ‘key predictions’ are promoted and amplified through PR, digital and social content pieces and a supporting set of illustrative infographics.

 

 

The club-by-club strand of the guide predicts that:

 

    > Saracens should finish strong with their last 3 matches all among the 10 easiest

    > Wasps should hit the ground running with 3 relatively easy games to start

    > Exeter Chiefs have three easy games in their last four, so could finish well

    > Leicester go the longest before their 5 hardest games, but December is tough

    > Bath start with 3 of their 5 toughest games in their first 5 fixtures

    > Northampton wait the joint-longest for 1 of their 5 easiest games

    > Harlequins get 3 of their 5 easiest games in the first 7 so should start well

    > Gloucester have a tough start

 

 

In parallel to this season launch initiative, the brand has also been rolling out kit launch campaigns for its new season club partner strips from Leinster in Ireland,

 

 

and Ospreys in Wales,

 


 

to Bath in England.

 

 

Comment:

 

Data is becoming more and more important in all aspects of rugby (just as it is in marketing) with chipped players and tactics and substitutions increasingly affected by data-driven analysis.

 

This is the kind of pre-season guide that brands used to produce in harness with media companies, but who needs a media partner for amplification when brands can engage directly and reach desired eyeballs through their down digital adn social channels (with a little PR push)?

 

This initiative follows on not just from its British & Irish Lions tour of New Zealand ‘Untouchable Jersey’ activation (see our ‘Launch’ and ‘Enforcer’ case studies), as well its marketing leveraging partner England’s away series win in Argentina and new season kit launches for partners like England,

 

 

 

and Ireland,

 

 

 

plus its work around the Women’s Rugby World Cup.

 

 

 

Canterbury has been involved in rugby for 113 years and is currently team kit supplier to England Rugby and Ireland Rugby as well as Bath Rugby, Leinster and Cardiff Blues.

 

Links:

 

Canterbury

https://www.canterbury.com/clubhouse.

https://www.instagram.com/canterburynz/

https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficialCanterbury/videos

https://twitter.com/canterburyNZ

https://www.facebook.com/canterbury

 



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