Life Style Sports, along with agency Atomic, has activated its sponsorship of Irish provincial rugby team ‘Connacht Rugby’ with a new campaign called ‘As Seen By The Opposition’.
The campaign, launched to promote this season’s new Life Style Sports sponsored Connacht Kit, is based on the club’s long standing reputation for ‘toughness’.
Indeed, the side has always been known to give opponents a hard battle.
So, the team created the viewpoint-led concept, ‘As Seen By The Opposition’, with the idea of showing the perspective of the new jersey from the perspective of the opposing team.
Agency Atomic created a poster campaign showing front row views from inside a scrum, a Connacht player soaring above his opposite number in a line-out and a rough hand-off from Connaught star Robbie Henshaw as he charges by.
In addition to powerful visuals created for print and outdoor work, a 30-second video was created to be played at team’s ‘Sports Ground’ on matchdays
The film is supported by a fan engagement campaign calling fans to show the opposition their ‘Game Face’ which encourages fans to put on their own game face and post it to twitter, Facebook or Instagram with the hashtag #LSSGameFace in order to be in with a chance of winning a signed jersey.
The campaign can be explored here on #Tagboard (see http://www.tagboard.com/lssgameface).
Comment
This engaging initiative not only offers fans a glimpse of what its like to be in a top level Connaught game, but also includes an incentivised and powerful participatory element.
The campaign aims to reflect a new era for Connacht rugby – following major changes that span the signing of new players such as the former All Black super star Mils Muliaini, a fresh round of IRFU funding and the partnership with Life Style Sports.
“We wanted to create an entire concept to excite the fans and show Connacht are a team to be reckoned with,” explains Atomic’s Carden Kent.
It certainly achieves more than the usual tough guy staring at the camera shot that has been so prevalent in old-school rugby creation.
Indeed, getting fans right in amongst the action is becoming something of a trend in rugby activation with recent England Rugby sponsor campaigns from O2 (see case study) and BMW (see case study).
Links
‘In Your Face’ Campaign Film YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysvqMCE4BoQ
Connacht Rugby Website
Atomic Website
