Results and Effectiveness

Content so engaging our target audience actively searched it out ... over 37,000 unique visitors searched on bbcworld.com & wsj.com to view our content. Content so engaging media owners aired it for FREE ... BBC aired the whole series globally within peak editorial time reaching 300 million household and delivering over US $1.7M media value. AWSJ placed the articles upfront in the newspaper free of charge. An approach so engaging that we cut thru the clutter, achieved 8% increase in TOM awareness and 14% greater differentiation versus category. Barclays exceeded their 2010 target shift in revenue growth in APAC.

Creative Execution

Barclays Business of Football exploited the power of liquid content to pull and engage the highly elusive and very discerning target audience. Working with a complex network of global partners, the agency developed a series of original short form content that not only drew similarities between business and football, but conveyed what business people could learn from the beautiful game. Boosting its appeal are valuable insights from a prestigious line-up of football moguls like Richard Scudamore (CEO FAPL), David Gill (CEO Manchester United) and Peter Kenyon (CEO Chelsea). The unique content was made accessible on TV, print and online – via channels our target consumes most often: BBC and Asian Wall Street Journal (AWSJ). Both found the content so compelling that BBC aired the series not just within the region, but across global feed, while AWSJ awarded the content prime position – series of doublespread articles upfront in the newspaper.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

Barclays Asia Pacific was set the ambitious task of increasing global share of revenue 150% by 2015. Challenge - With less money than competitors and investment banking category clutter we had to cut-through and engage a relatively small group of C- suites execs, high net worth individuals and potential employees. Insight – When this target consumes media they’re often in a state of partial attention (whether editorial or advertising) and they switch to a state of full attention based on the content’s relevance or their interest in the subject. Strategy - Proprietary research revealed that as well as being driven by success at work they also shared a passion for football and the English Premier League (EPL) in particular. We leveraged Barclays’ global sponsorship of the EPL and reframed it to a narrow target audience in APAC in a relevant and engaging way. The “Barclays Business of Football” was born.