Where’s the best location for any football team to promote its new shirts? In the local neighbourhood where the team plays its home games and where the hard core fans live of course.
This is the insight and truth around which French side Red Star FC created its 2019 new kit campaign.
The initiative, developed in harness with agency BETC Paris and produced by SuperVision, Red Star FC launched its new kit through a digital lookbook on Google Street View focusing on shot the Bauer Stadium neighborhood: one which enabled fans to see the new strips modelled by local supporters from the Saint-Ouen-sur-seine area.
Thus positioning local supporters and the Saint Ouen area itself as the stars of the campaign, whilst also activating in a forward-facing, global way
By taking a virtual walk around the streets surrounding the Bauer Stadium, the viewer was able to discover the new home and away shirt models from the collection and get to the know the team’s local area.
The stars, all Saint Ouen area inhabitants, range from a group of local girls, a skater, a pizza delivery person and even some local celebrities like John Hamon and rapper Junior Bvndo – all of whom proudly wear the new kit.
The kit campaign saw Red Star become the first brand ever to use Google Street View to launch a new product.
The campaign title, ‘Our Shirt. Our Hood’ / ‘Notre Maillot. Notre Quartier’ is also a play on the club’s motto ‘Our Heart. Our Strength’ / ‘Notre Cœur. Notre Force’.
As for the new kits themselves….the new home shirt comes in the club’s historic green colour with new black sleeves, while the new away shirt is pink.
The aim behind the fresh design is to follow in the footsteps as larger Paris based rival club PSG and move beyond football into the fashion space.
“Our agency moved to Pantin three years ago because we predicted there would be an opportunity to experiment on every level of Greater Paris,” commented BETC founder Rémi Babinet.
“Since then, we’ve tried to contribute by conceiving and creating concrete cultural actions concerning the Greater Paris area to hopefully help reveal the incredibly dynamic potential that surrounds us here. And that is how we found each other with Red Star.”
David Bellion, brand manager at Red Star FC, added: “Playing with Google Street View to reveal our shirts is to enter the matrix and putting Saint Ouen at the centre, show our neighbourhood, the suburb, the soul of Red Star and its supporters. And always, more than ever, we find inspiration in reality.”
Comment:
This campaign also works because it stays true to Red Star FC’s iconic status in France: one which is marked by its history, its culture and its territory.
This sports marketing campaign is straight out of the ‘keep it authentic, keep it real, keep it local (whilst also going global’ coaching handbook’.
Great tactics.
Links:
Red Star FC
https://www.instagram.com/redstarfc/
https://www.facebook.com/RedStarFC.Officiel/
BETC Paris
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