#introtopr

Canadian Football League #IsItJuneYet

https://www.madhattertech.ca/chatter/winning-approach-viral-sports-campaigns

https://www.forbes.com/sites/markfidelman/2015/06/09/here-are-5-of-the-best-sports-marketing-campaigns-that-went-viral-in-2015/#15560908401d

The Canadian Football League (CFL) generally is unrecognised in comparison to the powerhouse that is the NFL. In the lead-up to the CFL season, the league posts a range of YouTube and previously, Vine, videos to promote the season launch in order to build excitement from fans who already support the CFL but also surrounding sporting fans across the globe.

Twitter and Instagram have recently shown more of this hashtag as they have become more relevant social media platforms. A variety of athletes and fans are used to promote the season launch. Results from this hashtag across the various platforms revealed that there were over 730 posts from 572 users with over 1.4 million impressions related to the campaign. 

Heads Up - English Premier League

https://www.premierleague.com/heads-up

In February 2020, the English Premier League dedicated it’s Matchday 26 games to support the ‘Heads Up’ mental health campaign. Through the 8th-9th and the 14th-17th of February, the games were dedicated to the campaign in order to raise awareness and to encourage conversation about mental health. The main message that the campaign attempts to achieve is to #kickoffaconversation. 

The Heads Up branding featured wherever possible all across teams in the league. Whether this is across teams stadiums, programs and/or kits. A series of videos was also released by a number of Premier League players describing tough moments throughout their career and ways they dealt with forms of mental health, helping others improve their own mental health and wellbeing.  

Heads Up is a partnership between ‘Heads Together’ and the FA and just aims to further promote positive mental health and wellbeing stories and the effect that talking can help in regards to mental health.

The PR activity being analysed this week is Head & Shoulders new campaign, which was created and made just before the NFL season. Using former defensive back Troy Polamalu and current quarterback Patrick Mahomes to debate over whether offense or defence wins games, from a hair perspective.  

As the official shampoo of the NFL for over ten years, Head & Shoulders is using their two ambassadors to promote the product and even post on their respective social medias, sharing from their perspectives on what is more critical for hair and football success- either a high-powered offense or a strong defence.  

Being the official shampoo of the NFL for ten years means that most of the fans of the sport would already be aware of the product. Incorporating a funny debate over what hair products are best for offence or defence could also attract earned media which then transpires into people from all across the world seeing the new campaign. 

I personally engaged with this media on a website as I saw the ad and was intrigued with what the campaign, so I clicked on the link to watch the video which I really enjoyed. I really like the idea and think that releasing it just before the season starts is a good way to attract new fans to the NFL also to the brand Head & Shoulders.

The PR activity being analysed this week is Nike’s covid-19 membership promotion. Using the pandemic as motivational way to show that no matter what we are up against, we are never too far to come down. Using sport and athletes as examples through motivational videos showing what they have overcome. With the punch line ‘you can’t stop us, so join us’, to promote membership to the Nike brans.

Using ambassadors to promote the awareness of Coivd-19 and also their brand is a very smart way to promote not only the ambassador’s brand but also Nike. Nike are showing that everyone around the world right now are just like athletes that show resilience, grit and hope and that joining the Nike family will unite and remind people what they are capable of.

In this video made by Nike and posted by Lebron James one of the biggest basketball stars in the world, is a comeback story about his team in the 2016 NBA championships, showing that we can all be like him to and comeback from this challenge. The use of James as an ambassador promoting Nike’s motivational and promotional video to his massive 65.4 million followers on Instagram, creates major awareness and is a very well worked PR tool.

Similar to James’s video, Nike have done the same to one of the world’s most famous soccer starts Cristiano Ronaldo who is also an ambassador of Nike. With his outrageous following of 221 million it also brings a lot of positive PR to Nike and also now a different audience compared to James.

I engaged with this media through many people reposting the ad on their Instagram pages and also viewing it on LeBron James’ Instagram. With the use of these high-profile ambassadors, and Nike using their ambassadors history to create awareness for the current pandemic and also their brand is an amazing way to reach people from all around the world and create earned and positive media.

The PR activity being analysed this week is the NRL team Melbourne Storms ‘No gym, no worries’ post. Hal from the Storm’s high-performance team uploads videos to their social media platforms of him taking the viewers through some simple gym exercises to do at home with different ones to do each week.

Creating weekly posts of easy at home gym exercisers during the Covid-19 isolation, allows Storm followers access to a high-performance coach which the normally wouldn’t have access to. As there is no rugby being played at this time, being able to provide content like this increase’s attention from more than just Storm fans. It creates a place for other sports fans and other people who may not follow the storm or rugby to gain awareness of the team and the sport, with this content applying to a wide range of Australia right now who are unable to access gyms.

This is a PR campaign as these videos create attention to their team and brand to their stakeholders and potentially a new target audience. Adding these new weekly videos to not only Instagram but also on their website allows people who aren’t on Instagram to still be able watch and engage with the content. The use of hashtags that are #yourstorm and #Isolationworkouts also means that people looking for isolation workouts will find them.

The PR activity being analysed this week is the Melbourne Stars kid’s activities they have been producing for their fans in the current Covid-19 lockdown. The Melbourne Stars are a franchise in the cricket T20 Big Bash League (BBL) with a target audience that is targeted at family’s and kids.

Using activities like word searches that are made up of all words that relate to the Stars is a smart way for kids and people to learn players names and things about the franchise. These activities are forms of PR because the Stars are creating a relationship between stakeholders who are their fans and targeting kids and families with these activities who are also their target for memberships. Creating and maintain positive relations with stakeholders is one of the most important factors in PR and the Stars have done so with these family friendly ‘iso’ activities.

Having a website solely for kid’s activities with fun animations and graphics is a great way to entice fans to want to be a part of the Melbounre Star’s family. Although it isn’t cricket season, producing content like this for supporters and the public is a good way to keep them connect with cricket in winter and when it isn’t on tv as much, to advertise the game, the BBL and of course the Melbourne Star’s team.

In this picture from the Star’s Instagram, it is a simple graphic with the best bowlers that the franchise has signed, with a question of ‘who would you pick to bowl in a super over’. Small engaging content like this can get fans sharing and talking about what they think in the comments section and with their friends, ultimately creating free PR for the team.

The PR activity being analysed this week is the partnership deal between Barilla and The Australian Open. Barilla is known for being the ‘official pasta’ of the open and uses brand ambassador Roger Federer who is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. Pasta and tennis don’t really have much in common and it may be an obscure sponsorship deal, but with the use of such a high-profile ambassador it is hard not to see advertisements with Roger in them and not link Barilla with tennis.

Barilla offered tennis fans at the Australian Open to enjoy their Italian meals at its custom-built pasta restaurant just outside Rod Laver Arena and also gave out keep sake Barilla bags with every meal purchased during the tournament. With the use of brand ambassador Roger Federer and its very own restaurant at the Australian Open, Barilla has been able to use its association with tennis to become a well-known pasta brand and target the tennis audiences to buy and use their product just like their favourite tennis player Roger does.

I engaged with this sponsorship deal by firstly seeing billboards around Melbourne just before the start of The Australian Open. I also attend the Open across a few days and purchased food from Barilla and received handouts where I got to see what the consumer was getting out fo the sponsorship deal first hand. I think that using a tennis tournament to help get a pasta company brand awareness is strange, although the use of a high-profile tennis legend paired with a world-wide audience it a very well put together sponsorship deal.  

The PR activity being analysed this week is the partnership deal between the beer company Carlsberg and the famous Football club, Liverpool. To celebrate their 26- year long sponsorship deal, Carlsberg has created limited edition red beer to go along with the red labels to represent the Liverpool colours, giving up their trademark green label.

This PR activity is using the stakeholder theory as it is showing Carlsberg’s strong relationship with its stakeholder in Liverpool Football club, while also using Liverpool to advertise the beer to their worldwide supporter base. Making the beer red and also a limited-edition item is very appealing as it has never been done before, Liverpool supporters have seen the beer company aligned with their beloved Football team for 26 years and would be very interested in getting the limited-edition red Liverpool beer.

I engaged with this campaign firstly on a website. Once I saw the advertisement and read about it I was already amazed at the company changing the colour of their beer and needed to find out more. This campaign although is an interesting one, making a big change and making the colour of the beer red could be a waste of money if Liverpool fans didn’t buy the product. On the other hand, customers of the beer that aren’t Liverpool or football fans in general may be turned off by the red beer and then not want to buy the beer. I think as it has been such a long partnership I feel as though the customers could be aware and not bothered by the change, all in all I think that it is never been done before and a cool new initiative to change the actual colour of the beer to represent Liverpool.