THE PREROLL FOOTBALL MATCH
Title | THE PREROLL FOOTBALL MATCH |
Brand | TELENET |
Product/Service | PLAY SPORTS |
Category |
C02. Innovative Online Ad Solution |
Entrant
|
TBWA\BELGIUM Brussels, BELGIUM
|
Idea Creation
|
TBWA\BELGIUM Brussels, BELGIUM
|
Media Placement
|
PHD MEDIA Brussels, BELGIUM
|
Production
|
TBWA\BELGIUM Brussels, BELGIUM
|
Credits
Greg van Buggenhout |
TBWA |
Art Director |
Olaf Meuleman |
TBWA |
Copywriter |
Jeroen Bostoen |
TBWA |
Creative Director |
Gert Pauwels |
TBWA |
Head of Digital |
Max Fauconnier |
TBWA |
Account Executive |
Tom Eilers |
TBWA |
Account Manager |
Jochen De Greef |
TBWA |
Client Service Director |
Joachim Francois |
TBWA |
Digital Account Director |
Virginie Hayet |
TBWA |
Account Manager |
Diedrik Van Remoortere |
TBWA |
web developer |
Ken Kools |
TBWA |
Digital Process Manager |
Stijn Dupas |
TBWA |
Digital Process Manager |
Lieselotte Van Aperen |
TBWA |
Communications Manager |
Manu Leroy |
Telenet |
Director Sports Product, Sponsoring & G2Market |
Wouter Vandenameele |
PHD Media |
Digital Strategy Director |
Christine Brone |
PHD Media |
Managing Director |
The Campaign
You skip ads all the time. But would you skip a live football match?
Pre-rolls are annoying. And we all try to skip them as soon as possible. But what if we make a preroll people actually wànt to see? So much, they would even switch off their ad-blockers?
During the Supercup, Play Sports decided to replace all their pre-roll ads with the live broadcast of the game. A technical challenge with a real time connection between the stadium, the live broadcast and the pre-roll ad server. But it worked, so instead of a boring ad, people could see the game. And as long as they didn’t skip it, they could keep watching.
And guess what… Fans didn’t skip. The idea spread like wildfire, which lead to 145.484 people watching the game.
Creative Execution
It had never been done before, which implied a lot of technical difficulties. We partnered up with a big Belgian media group that owns a lot of big news sites where they offer media space in pre-rolls. To pull this off we had to create a real time connection between the stadium, the live broadcast, the pre roll ad server and media buyer. Needless to say, this was a huge technical challenge that took months.
On media point of view, this was also quite a challenge: during specific 90 minutes, on a big part of the Flemish news sites, our live pre-roll ad was playing. Our SOV was 100% in those 90 minutes, with a massive return in instant reach.
The pre-roll football match was viewed by 145.484 people in only 90 minutes, on different Flemish news sites. Given the 100% SOV in this peak period in the evening, on over 10 big news sites, this pre-roll created a lot of reach in a short timeframe. And although this was a skippable ad, the average viewtime of our pre-roll was 21,5 minutes. Compared to a average 15” viewtime benchmark.
These 145.484 people was on top of the 21.500 football fans in the Anderlecht stadium, and the 112.054 people on the Play Sports channel that watched the game. Not bad for a Belgian football game.
Plus, that same weekend the subscriptions on Play Sports were up with 417% compared to last year’s opening weekend.
Play Sports has the biggest live sports offer in Belgium. And because of that, they are always right where the action happens, so fans don’t have to miss a thing. This lead to a campaign where we triggered consumers for the upcoming season by saying: ‘don’t miss a second of the next season’. We highlighted several crucial seconds that made a huge impact during the last season. We searched our consumers online, on specific news sites. Since a lot of fans search online where they can see the match, we were in the right place to target them.
And by offering the Supercup for free to the public, people didn’t have to miss a second of the game. At the end we communicated to the viewers that with Play Sports, they don’t have to miss a second of every other game in the upcoming season.