On 17 June Team Ireland official sponsor FBD Insurance teamed up with creative agency The Public House and media agency PHD to launch ‘Sound Support’ for Irish Olympians: a marketing initiative which creates custom set lists of support for Team Ireland athletes that they can take with them to Tokyo 2020.
Due to the pandemic, it seems highly likely that international spectators will not be allowed to attend the Olympics and support their national stars, so, with no home-grown local support in Japan, this activation aims to offer a customised dose of Irish support to help its Olympians during their journey
‘Sound Support’ is a set list of custom music tracks individually crafted for three Irish athletes and FBD Brand Ambassadors: boxer and lightweight world champion Kellie Harrington, hockey player and World Cup silver medallist Chloe Watkins; and rising badminton star Nhat Nyugen.
The sounds themselves are high intensity tracks with beats and tempos created out of the recorded sounds of each athlete’s workouts backed by personal messages of support from athlete’s loved ones layered on as vocal samples.
To ensure the tracks resonate, Team Ireland sports psychologist and former Olympic hurdler Jessie Barr teamed up with the sponsor and agency to review the impact of music on athletic performance, while Irish music producer Richard Egan was then enlisted to implement optimum heart rate BPM outputs for each track.
The campaign is promoted primarily via television and social channels with VOD and OOH support and it is led by a trio of films telling the story of how the set lists were created for the three Irish Olympians.
FBD’s Sound Support 60-second spots is planned for rotation on TV from late June through to the Olympic Closing ceremony in August.
The TV work is supported by VOD showing people where to watch the full film, while tactical OOH executions will run during the games in high footfall urban locations around Ireland demonstrating FBD’s ongoing support of Team Ireland as the competition begins in Tokyo.
Social content plays a key role in telling the story and utilising shorter form content to directing people to view the full film and to listen to the tracks.
The custom tracks are also available here on Spotify.
“Support is what we do at FBD Insurance, and as official sponsors of Team Ireland we wanted to recreate the great homegrown support that we know our athletes are going to miss in Tokyo,” explained FBD Marketing Manaer Brian Healy. “FBD’s Sound Support won’t just bring messages of support from Ireland to Japan – we hope it will enable our Irish Olympians to dig a little deeper, find some extra motivation and set a new personal best”
The Public House Creative Director Colin Hart added: “Irish support at major sporting events is always something to be proud of. We want to make sure this year’s Olympic Games are no different. Even if no Irish fans are singing from the stands, their support will be felt by the competing athletes and that’s what really matters.”
The activation was created for FBD Insurance Head Of Brand Aileen Donoghue, Chief Commercial Officer John Cahalan and Marketing Managers Brian Healy and Nicola Ging by The Public House.
The creative agency team working on the project included Founder/Creative Director Colin Hart, Managing Director Catrióna Campbell, Copywriter Mikey Curran,Art Director Sam Caren, Senior Account Manager Kate Fulham, Strategy Director Sarah Walsh, Strategist Kathleen Moore, Interdisciplinary Designer Cian Booth, Agency Producer Aoife Fitzgerald and Head Of Production Steve Battle.
The production company was Event Junkies with Director POB, Producers Steven Courtney and Louise Byrne, plus Editors Laura Briggs and John Cutler.
The composer was Richard Egan and the photography was Chris Lindhorst, with post production by Floss Creatives, CGI from Simon Allan, Retouching by Alexis Goodwin and sound handled by Colm O’rourke of Raygun.
PHD Media handled the media plan and buy with Managing Director Gemma Teeling, Group Client Director Mary Murray, Senior Account Manager Shane McCaul, Account Manager Abagail Cooke and Account Executive Ciara Bardon.
Comment:
This campaign reminds us a little of Coca-Cola’s London 2012 ‘My Beat Maker’ app activation with Marc Ronson.
It also continues the current boom in audio and sound related sports marketing continues as podcasts and Spotify campaigns continue to drive the trends.
Other notable recent examples of standout work in this space include Virgin Money’s London Marathon ‘Mo Farah People’s Playlist’, Volvo’s NY Marathon ‘Audio Experience’ and FIFA and Universal Music’s ‘Play On’ podcast
This FBD campaign follows on from the brand’s February 2021 ‘Support, It’s What We Do’ Team Ireland activation.
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