Leveraging the 25 September second Bledisloe Cup match, TAB NZ fuelled the flames of the Rugby Australia and Rugby New Zealand rivalry to build excitement ahead of the event and custom by asking punters ‘Which Side Of History Are You On?’.
Conceived in harness with creative agency Yarn, the comic campaign ramped up the trans-Tasman rivalry by highlighting the game’s history to drive home just what was at stake – victory on home soil – by pointing out that it’s been 21 years since the Wallabies last won a match in New Zealand. That game that took place at Carisbrook in 2001 in a stadium once known as the ‘House Of Pain’ but which is now a construction site and wasteland.
The campaign narrative revolves around Aussie rugby union fan Garry, played by comedian Luke Heggie, who has returned to the old stadium as part of an annual pilgrimage.
It is led by a hero spot which also features former Wallaby star Matt Burke who played in the 2001 match and which debuted on 20 September.
The lead video was supported by a set of cut downs, edits and social content and the campaign also included further, dynamic strands running across LUMO digital billboards which employed real-time data from TAB NZ customers wagers to create entertaining low latency headlines.
Plus, three jars of (supposed) Carisbrook soil were made available as prizes offered to customers backing the wrong team to win the match: a marketing strand promoted through video, image and PR content and listed on TradeMe.
While 21 bonus punts worth $5000 each (one for each year since 2001) were drawn after the match out of all customers who backed the winning team.
“Fresh off the back of a successful ‘Consider The Odds’ campaign during the Ireland tour of New Zealand, we wanted to play on that historical angle that served us well when poking fun at Ireland’s record in New Zealand prior to this tour,” explained TAB NZ Chief Marketing and Customer Experience Officer Jodi Williams. “TAB NZ approached independent creative agency Yarn to generate talkability around the Bledisloe Cup and to continue to help the TAB NZ brand to show up differently in the public.”
Yarn Creative Director Rich Robson and Matt Sellars commented: “Knowing that the site of the Wallabies’ last win here is being slowly bulldozed away and almost removed from existence, we knew this was the perfect spot to tell an entertaining story.”
Yarn Managing Partner added: “We’re excited to be collaborating with the TAB NZ team. We have a growing team here at Yarn who love getting stuck into exciting briefs like this and doing everything we can to make things happen. Like sliding into Matty Burke’s DMs!”
The campaign was briefed in by and created for a TAB marketing team which included CMO Jodi Williams, Senior Lead Brand Engagement Joan Zhang and PR Manager Matt Smith by a group at creative agency Yarn led by Managing Partner Heath Davy, Senior Creatives Rich Robson and Matt Sellars and Junior Creatives Bayleigh Way and Alyssa Yeoman.
The production company was Reel Factory with Director Johnny Barker, Producer Pippa Keiller, DOP Chris Watkins, 1st AC Brad Colman, Sound Recordist Danny Watts, Production Manager Raluca Cozariuc, Production Coordinator Lisa Scott, Offline Editor Connor Ayliffe, Grade Alex Mitchell, with sound handled by Radiate Sound and media by MBM.
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