Title	SAVE OUR SHIRT
Brand	PADDY POWER
Product/Service	PADDY POWER BRAND
Category	C01. Brave Brands
Entrant	OCTAGON UK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation	OCTAGON UK London, UNITED KINGDOM
Idea Creation 2	VCCP London, UNITED KINGDOM
Media Placement	MEDIACOM London, UNITED KINGDOM
PR	VCCP London, UNITED KINGDOM

Name	Company	Position
Josh Green	Octagon	Creative Director
Joe Stuart	Octagon	Creative
Cos Georgiou	Octagon	Creative
Henry Nash	Octagon	Planning Director
Joel Seymour-Hyde	Octagon	Head of UK
Mark Orbine	VCCP	Executive Creative Director
Kevin Masters	VCCP	Creative Director
Christine Turner	VCCP	Creative Director
Chris Willis	VCCP	Creative
Paul Kocur	VCCP	Creative
Simon Plant	VCCP	TV Producer
Christine Ashbury	VCCP	Planning Director
Max Macbeath	VCCP	Planner
Philip Higham	VCCP	Head of Account Management
Sam Daniels	VCCP	Account Director
Richard Butt	Mediacom	Associate Director
Michelle Spillane	Paddy Power	Marketing Director
David Sandall	Paddy Power	Head of Brand
Emer McCarthy	Paddy Power	Head of Brand
Lee Price	Paddy Power	Head of PR
Will Gunton	Paddy Power	Marketing Manager
Dan Oates	Paddy Power	Brand Manager

Why is this work relevant for Creative Strategy?

We started with a simple provocation: How can we get Paddy Power and all its competitors banned from the toxic shirt sponsorships that threaten the integrity of football? Achieve this, and then Paddy Power would forever been known as the one betting brand that truly understands and cares about the game. So this was a campaign born out of the bravest of strategic thoughts – one designed to change an industry for the better and serve a mortal blow to Paddy’s competitors.

Background

As Paddy Power themselves proclaimed, loyalty in the betting category is dead. Cutting through the clutter to win not only fans’ attention, but also their hearts, was at the centre of Paddy Power’s challenge for the start of the football season. In the UK, gambling addiction is growing, whilst football clubs have become commercially dependent on betting firms. Today, nearly 60% of the top UK clubs have shirt sponsorship deals with betting firms (amounting to £250m+ in club revenue). It’s great for betting brands, but not for anyone else – especially fans, who've become walking billboards. Paddy Power’s position is Enough of the Nonsense™. So, to make Paddy Power the good guys, we knew we needed to behave radically different to our competitors. That meant giving back to the fans, rather than exploiting them. And we knew there was one asset that fans value above all else: The football shirt.

Interpretation (30% of vote)

The brief from Paddy was simple: Help us show football fans we’re a cut above the rest through a fame driving idea. To find our space to play, we first observed how the market was behaving. Consumers were subject to a steady stream of shouty, lad-tastic odds-driven messages and promotions. Bombarded with this barrage of cliches, punters had become an increasingly promiscuous bunch, opting to use the brand with the best deal on the day. Genuine loyalty in the market was dead. Paddy Power see themselves as the rebels amongst their peers with a positioning built challenging ‘Nonsense’ and a penchant for mischief. If fans could recognize Paddy as being the good guys amongst a bad bunch, then our job was done.

Insight / Breakthrough Thinking (30% of vote)

Through our own media analysis, we discovered that being on the shirt isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, accounting for only 15% of the overall media value in an average sponsorship deal. Armed with this knowledge and applying it to a betting brand with a history of mischief and who’ve never invested in front of shirt sponsorship … well, you’ve got all the ingredients to disrupt the category for ever. Our big strategic idea was a commitment to ‘Unsponsor Football,’ acquiring the sacred front of shirt real estate and then gifting it back to the fans so they could wear it with pride again – clean, de-logo-ed and pure. We identified a small portfolio of progressive football clubs spanning British football. Huddersfield Town, a progressive club with an enviable heritage, that had suffered recent relegation from the English Premier League became our anchor club.

Creative Idea (20% of vote)

Save Our Shirt. The campaign was born with a sole purpose to return the sacred shirt back to the fans – a symbolic gesture backing the very people who make the beautiful game…well, beautiful: The fans themselves. It might sound grand and serious and game-changing. And it is some of those things – but at its core Save Our Shirt was a simple, common sense call for sponsors to stop bastardising football shirts and to return them to their rightful owners. This issue wasn’t one owned or controlled by Paddy Power. We simply started the ball rolling, encouraging everyone who feels slighted, exploited, or a bit embarrassed to wear their shirt out, to join us and the Save Our Shirt movement.

Outcome / Results (20% of vote)

The beauty of Save Our Shirt was that everyone benefited. Huddersfield Town’s shirt became the 6th best-selling strip in the UK (ahead of four Premier League giants) and now sits in the National Football Hall of Fame. Paddy Power were the most talked about brand ahead of the new football season, with the story trending No.2 globally on Twitter twice, driving a 600% increase in brand consideration, and a 15% rise in customer acquisition. Most importantly, society won. In the aftermath, Everton ended their relationship with betting company Sport Pesa two years early. And in February, the UK Government committed to reviewing the 2006 Gambling Act, with a view to outlawing betting brands from front of shirt sponsorship, citing ‘Save Our Shirt’ as inspiration for this legislative change. And finally, Paddy Power’s competitors won – they can now pursue more ethical ways of reaching their audience. Football, you’re welcome.