SAVE OUR SHIRT

TitleSAVE OUR SHIRT
BrandPADDY POWER
Product/ServicePADDY POWER BRAND
Category D04. Brand Integration & Sponsorship / Partnership
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
Credits
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 Entertainment?

You might say ‘Save Our Shirt’ sets a damaging precedent for sports and entertainment sponsorships. You could even say that betting firms are a valuable source of revenue for football clubs that need it. We say bollocks. The football shirt is sacred. It can’t be improved upon with a betting logo. It’s worn by players who are role models for young people. With ‘Save Our Shirt’ nearly everyone won. The clubs, the fans and Paddy Power. To us, the campaign is not only suitable for the entertainment category, but an absolute necessity.

Background

In a sector ruled by odds-driven marketing, our brief was to cut through the clutter to earn the attention and win the hearts of football fans at the start of the season. Here in the UK, over two million people are addicted to gambling. Football clubs are addicted too, with nearly 60% of the top UK clubs taking handouts in the form of lucrative shirt sponsorship deals from betting firms (amounting to over £250m in club revenue). Great for betting companies, but less so for society and the fans, who have become walking billboards. True to its position, Paddy Power said Enough of the Nonsense™. In order to make Paddy Power as the good guys, we needed to behave radically different to our competitors. By giving back to the fans, rather than exploiting them. And, we knew there was one asset that fans value above all else: Their shirt.

Describe the creative idea

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.

Describe the strategy

Our big strategic idea was a commitment to ‘Unsponsor Football,’ removing our logo from the sacred shirt and gifting it back to the fans so they could wear it with pride again, clean, de-logo-ed and pure. We identified and reached out to a portfolio of progressive football clubs spanning British football, with the recently relegated Huddersfield Town AFC acting as our anchor club for our campaign. Because front of shirt sponsorship accounts for only 15% of the overall media value in an average sponsorship deal, we made the bet that the PR value gained from our campaign would far outstrip any lost in media value from forgoing our logo on the front of their shirt. And we were right.

Describe the execution

We made fans the lead actors in their own reality TV drama. First, we drew their ire to raise awareness of the issue. Next, we captured their hearts through an unprecedented act of generosity. The Bait We stoked outrage of football’s toxic relationship with betting by unveiling a fake Huddersfield kit – with a supersized sash logo splashed across the front. By lunchtime, the kit was trending worldwide on social media. Greeted by boos and demands for the kit to be banned, Huddersfield wore the shirt for a real match against Rochdale. By morning, the story had made national TV news, and the Football Association had begun an investigation. Meanwhile, we stayed quiet as the story dominated the news. The Switch Amidst the meltdown, we revealed the real ‘logo-less’ shirt and launched ‘Save Our Shirt.’ We ‘unsponsored’ four more clubs and extended the campaign through TV, OOH, press and social.

Describe the outcome

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.