A mid-June digital out-of-home campaign from London’s Migration Museum leveraged UEFA Euro 2020 real-time results and aimed to shape fan conversation and show the positive impact of immigration on the sport.
Titled ‘Football Moves People’ and created by Wonderhood Studios, the work ran nationwide across UK pub screens, outdoor sites, digital and social media with an online hub where fans can explore player migration stories.
The campaign ran in cities nationwide with executions locally tailored to run in areas where featured players grew up. Thus ads showcasing the family roots of key England players such as Raheem Sterling (Northwest London), Marcus Rashford (Manchester), Gareth Bale (Cardiff), Lianne Sanderson (South London) and Harry Kane (Northeast London).
An hour before each England game kicked off, an ad mapped out the team’s starting line-up on the pitch and highlighted the gaps that would be there without first, second or third generation immigrants.
Then, after the match finished, outdoor digital posters reflected significant scores and highlight how they would have been different without immigration: for example, England would have not have won 1-0 against Croatia in its opening game without Raheem Sterling’s goal.
Linked by the #FootballMovesPeople hashtag, the campaign stretched across social channels led by work on the museum’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds running for the duration of the Euros.
Plus a window display at the museum’s home in Lewisham Shopping Centre celebrated ‘South London Football Heroes’ as nominated by South Londoners via social media.
“It’s no exaggeration to say that without migration, football as we know it wouldn’t exist,” said the Migration Museum’s Head Of Public Engagement Robyn Kasozi. “But migration has shaped far more than football. It goes to the heart of who we all are, where we come from and where we’re going—as individuals, as communities and as nations. It’s time to put migration at the heart of our national conversations, and with tens of millions of us watching the Euros this summer, where better to start than with football.”
The campaign was spearheaded by a team at agency Wonderhood Studios which included Founder & Chief Creative Officer Aidan McClure, Founder & Chief Operating Officer Alex Best, Creatives Ads Dechaud and Phil Le Brun, Design Director Simon Elvins, Designer Filip Pomykalo (King Henry Studio), Planning Director Nick Exford, Account Executive Sham Shakil and Head of Project Management & Print Production Roy Barker.
As well as the museum and its agency/production company, the campaign included several creative and platform partners including Goal Click, Sports Interactive, Find My Past and SetPlay App.
Comment:
Despite the fact that all 26 nations competing at the 2020 Euros including players in their squads currently playing outside of their home countries, that more than half of the England squad having at least one parent or grandparent born outside the UK and that the game itself was exported around the world by UK emigrants, migration is rarely part of the mainstream football conversation and this campaign aims to change this.
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