Running through Spring and Summer 2020, The Real Heroes Project was an alliance of 14 different North American sports brands, major sports leagues and partners, plus sports marketers and advertising professionals which harnessed the scale, power and positivity of sports to bring awareness and generate support for individual healthcare workers on the frontlines in the fight against Covid-19.
Territory: USA / North America
Agency: 72andSunny Los Angeles & Hecho Studios
Objectives
As the world shut down in March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, professional sports across the USA ground to a halt as the NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS (and others) suspended their seasons. Even the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games were postponed until 2021.
With so many stoppages across the North American sports landscape and so much pandemic-related need across the country, a group of leading sports brand, professional league marketers, members of the advertising media industry and agencies (which included leagues NFL, NHL, MLS, NBA, WNBA, MLB, NWSL, WTA, ATP, WWE, USGA, NASCAR, plus brands like Activision and EA Sports) gathered virtually initially to discuss their challenges and share solutions (from interrupted and cancelled sessions, to scrapped playoffs and delayed opening days).
This cross-code marketing team – which originally included the likes of Activision Blizzard eSports Chief Marketing Officer Daniel Cherry III, NBA Chief Marketing Officer Kate Jhaveri, NFL Chief Marketing Officer Tom Ellis, Nascar Chief Marketing Officer Jill Gregory – teamed up with marketing publication and project partner AdWeek and they rapidly realised that fans expected to see corporate responsibility and community commitment from major US sports, their sponsor brands and support services.
So they invited creative agency 72andSunny and production company Hecho Studios to join them and develop a way of using the inspirational power and pull of sports to collectively contribute to combatting the pandemic and to rally around frontline medical professionals.
With Adweek and 72andSunny leading the co-ordination, the objective was to make the most of the truism that the collective can provide more impact than the individual and the collaborative campaign which emerged was unlike any other in US sporting history: ‘The Real Heroes Project’ set out to recognise, celebrate, support and raise money for healthcare workers on the front lines fighting Covid-19 by sparking a movement that would last beyond the current stay-at-home period and extend into the return-to-play future and which would keep sports top of mind.
Activation
The resulting campaign, which was produced during lockdown and launched less than a month from the initial idea, was designed as a simple, flexible initiative enabling leagues and stars from multiple sports to participate and enabling sports fans to easily engage with and be part of.
AdWeek described the approach as ‘a sticky idea, easy to replicate: all that was needed was tape, a pen and a desire to honour those heroes on the pandemic field every day’.
Launched on 4 May 2020, the campaign was initially built around a series of shot-at-home social media posts by athletes using the hashtag #TheRealHeroes in which US sporting heroes altered their jerseys and uniforms to honour an individual doctor, nurse or EMT worker on the front lines of the pandemic by replacing their own last name with the name of their selected healthcare hero.
This was followed by the 6 May launch of a spearhead Public Service Announcement (PSA) video rolled out to leverage National Nurses Day and airing across the 14 professional leagues’ and the athletes’ own platforms featuring the athletes’ personal thank you messages to their healthcare heroes.
The PSA, which set out to inspire a lasting movement, featured more than 25 athletes ranging from World Cup winner and US Women’s Team star Carli Lloyd, NHL hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, four-time WNBA All-Star and Pheonix Mercury guard Skylar Diggins-Smith, two-time WNBA All-Star and 2018 WNBA MVP forward Breanna Stewart of the Seattle Storm, as well as 2020 NBA All-Star and Utah Jazz point guard Donovan Mitchell and New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees.
Several sports stars in the PSA even honoured their own family members and friends working in healthcare: for example, San Francisco 49ers All-Pro tight end George Kittle showed his support for his high school friend and nurse Kari Mueller.
The supporting creative encouraged participation from viewers, consumers and fans to themselves customise their own favourite team shirts with tape to add the name of a healthcare worker they wanted to honour.
As well as spreading support for those on the frontline, the initiative also added a donation mechanic via a bespoke webpage.
Outcome
This award-winning project trended Number One on Twitter when it launched and within three months of the campaign launch the initiative had generated 3.3bn media impressions and more than 100,000 social media mentions with the player-led rallying cry video itself generating more than 10m views across social without paid support and inspired more than 24,000 sports fans to share their own tributes to healthcare workers.
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