Title	RAINING CHAMPIONS
Brand	XYLEM
Product/Service	'RAINING CHAMPIONS' BEER
Category	B09. Sponsorship & Brand Partnership
Entrant	BRAVE London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	BRAVE London, UNITED KINGDOM
PR	EDELMAN London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Liam Fenton	Brave	Creative Director
Colin Jones	Brave	Creative Director
Lee Robins	Brave	Head of Design
Nicky Da Silva	Brave	Account Director
Declan Garvin	Brave	Business Director

Why is this work relevant for PR?

We harnessed the power of Xylem’s global sponsorship of Manchester City to create a PR idea combining sponsorships, partnerships and CSR to raise awareness of the need for everyone to be smarter about water usage. To highlight the challenge in a refreshing way, we took rainwater from the Etihad Stadium roof, and recycled it into a limited edition beer, Raining Champions. Brewed at Heineken Manchester, and launched as City retained the Premier League title, bottles of the beer were sent to the media, influencers, bloggers and fans to join in the celebrations, and share our important message about water complacency.

Background

All over the world, access to clean water is in decline. Xylem exists to ‘solve water’ by improving supply infrastructure for customers such as government bodies and industry partners. To help share their important mission with the wider public, last year they became a sponsor of Manchester City, a unique platform from which to engage with a global audience. To support Xylem’s 4-year sponsorship, we devised an over-arching creative platform, Closer Than You Think, to convey that water issues are happening here and now. Our brief was to leverage club and player access to create a PR-able activation that would help us capitalise on Manchester City’s reach and increase awareness of the global water crisis. Our objective for this campaign was to highlight water scarcity and challenge complacency in a way that would resonate with millions of people around the world, including but not limited to Manchester City’s fan base.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

With Manchester averaging 152 rainy days per year, issues like water scarcity may seem a world away. But the reality is that the threats posed by water challenges are closer than we think. To highlight this truth, we came up with a PR campaign idea that celebrated Manchester City’s Premier League title win, while also raising awareness about water complacency, in a way that would capture the attention of City’s global fanbase, the media and the public. Teaming up with Heineken Manchester, we created Raining Champions – a limited-edition beer made with purified rainwater collected from the roof of City’s Etihad Stadium, and launched to tie into the team’s title-winning celebrations. The beer took centre stage in the victorious dressing room and on the trophy parade bus, and more bottles were sent to media and City’s influencers, with wide reaching coverage from the press and across social media.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

Insight: In Manchester it rains a lot. But the truth is, levels of clean water are in decline, both globally and closer to home. Message: Highlight the issue of water scarcity and the need to be smarter about how we use it. Audience: Global Manchester City fans, plus wider audiences through engaging, shareable fan content and the power of PR. Xylem industry partners via sales teams. Assets/Distribution: •Campaign key visual, optimised for social post and digital HPTO •Bottle beer labels and presentation box for press and influencers •Image of players in dressing room celebrating with beer, distributed to press •Influencers shared images with the beer toasting the ‘Raining Champions’ •Beer making film to educate fans, released via a social post on International World Beer day, inviting them to a beer tasting event at the Etihad •All campaign materials live on a dedicated Manchester City partnership page at Xylem.com

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

Implementation: •Bottles in winning dressing room, trophy bus + media and City influencers •Bottles in press room, first match of new season •Bottles given away during social competition at beer tasting event Timeline: •10/05/19 - Creative assets and URLs shared with Manchester City •12/05/19: •Manchester City crowned Premier League champions •Assets live on Xylem.com and Manchester City social •Bottles arrive to influencers •13/05/19 - Press Release distributed, launching Raining Champions •02/08/19 - Social post invites fans to stadium beer tasting event •17/08/19 - Beer tasting event at first home game of new season •27/08/19 - Beer making film released on Manchester City social and Xylem.com Scale: Press release sent to media: •UK News / Sports •Marketing •Broadcast •Online •Sustainability •Water trade Campaign picked up by many news, sports and water trade titles. Huge reach via Manchester City social channels and influencer posts.

List the results (30% of vote)

T1 - Media outputs: •All digital creative posted on Manchester City social, leveraging huge global reach of 427M (Nielsen) •Raining Champions celebration post received 2,789,497 views and 125,311 engagements. •Beer making film released organically on City's Facebook and Instagram pages resulted in combined organic views of 560k+ and reached a combined 862k+ •Paid competition post on Manchester City’s Twitter asked fans to tag a friend they wanted to toast a victory with to win a signed bottle. Hundreds of competition entries and 1.4M impressions T2 - Target audience outcomes: •In the sponsorship’s first 6 months, Raining Champions contributed to increased awareness of Xylem by over 300% pre and post campaign (Research conducted by Lightspeed) •Awareness and concern for water-related issues amongst City fans grew by 30% pre and post campaign - a great start towards achieving the overall objective, with 3.5 years of the sponsorship remaining •From 345 people surveyed at the beer tasting event, overall people were comfortable with the idea of recycled water being used to make a drinkable beer: •81% Liked the beer •48% Knew you could make beer from recycled rainwater •94% Trusted the beer we made with recycled water met all the safety needs and quality standards T3 - Business outcomes: Xylem elevated its purpose and profile by raising awareness of the issues surrounding water complacency. This successfully contributed to the growth of brand awareness by +300%. The activation also led to increased customer and industry engagement, driving new sales opportunities.