The first week of December saw McDonald’s New Zealand, the official family sponsor of Emirates Team New Zealand, launch a new summer campaign supporting the America’s Cup defender ahead of the early 2020 regatta.
The campaign, conceived and created by agency DDB Aotearoa, dovetails with the brand’s umbrella marketing approach based around the fast food brand’s championing of the importance of the simple pleasure of family togetherness. The thinking is that through the summer, this message is more important as Kiwis escape the daily grind to spend downtime with their whānau.
So the new campaign seeks to capture that spirit of summer whānau togetherness by rousing support for arguably the biggest summer sports event on the country’s collective radar – the defence of The America’s Cup.
The campaign is led by a set of hero spots – ‘Race Day’, ‘Share’ and ‘Underdog’ – and runs across TV, print, OOH, social, digital and PR with the copy line ‘The Crew Behind The Crew’.
According to DDB Aotearoa Lead Business Partner Karla Fisher, the team challenged itself to capture the feeling of simple family fun while incorporating the magic of Emirates Team New Zealand’s upcoming title defence.
“It was a pleasure working with the Macca’s marketing crowd to make these lovely spots reflective of the New Zealand summer and Kiwi spirit,” explained Fisher. “Part underdog, part ingenuity, part sportsmanship and a whole lot of whānau togetherness.”
Deb Fell, Head of Marketing for McDonald’s New Zealand, added that the early response from the Kiwi public is very positive: “When we first met with Emirates Team New Zealand, we talked about the role we could play in helping get Kiwi families backing the team. It’s been great to work with the DDB Aotearoa team to bring that thinking to life, in a story of Kiwi ingenuity with a family spending quality time together over the summer. As the excitement builds up to the defence of The America’s Cup you’ll see our campaign extend and our restaurants ramp up as the ‘crew behind the crew’ do their bit to support the team.”
The campaign was created for McDonald’s New Zealand (Maccas) Director of Marketing Jo Mitchell, Head of Marketing Deb Fell, Head of Comms Simon Kenny, Senior Brand Managers/Brand Managers Nikki Jeffcote, Laura Lloyd, Nadia Els Smit and Naomi Reynolds by agency DDB Aotearoa.
The agency team included Chief Creative Officer Damon Stapleton, Executive Creative Director Gary Steele, Creative Director Ben Pegler, Art Director Adam Barnes, Copywriter James O’Sullivan, Lead Business Partner Karla Fisher, Business Partner Mitch Young, Business Manager Chelsea Bostock, Chief Strategy Officer Rupert Price, Strategy Director Charlotte Marks, Executive Producer Judy Thompson and Producer Casey King.
The Media Agency was OMD, the Production Company was Flying Fish with Executive Producer James Moore, Producer Penelope Sinclair, Director Ben Briand, DOP Andrew Stroud, the Post Production Company was Mandy VFX with Colourist Matic Prusnik and Post Production Online also handled by Mandy VFX’s Leon Woods with Editor Tim Mauger and music by Ghost.
Comment:
The 36th America’s Cup (presented by Prada), the oldest trophy in sport, will take place between 6 – 21 March 2021 with the challenger regatta to determine who will face holder Emirates Team New Zealand will run from 15 January to 22 February.
This campaign follows in the footsteps of telco Spark’s ‘5G Team Emirates New Zealand 5G Immersive Experience’ initiative which launched in October 2020, while other notable America’s Cup activations include Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli’s ‘Challengers For Now’ social series.
Links:
McDonald’s New Zealand
DDB Aotearoa
Emirates Team New Zealand
https://emirates-team-new-zealand.americascup.com/
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