Title | A DIFFERENT BALL GAME |
Brand | MELBOURNE ACES |
Product / Service | BASEBALL TEAM |
Category | A04. Use of Digital in a Direct Campaign |
Entrant | OGILVY MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA |
Entrant Company | OGILVY MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA |
Advertising Agency | OGILVY MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA |
Production Company | EXIT FILMS Melbourne, AUSTRALIA |
Name | Company | Position |
---|---|---|
Steve Back | Ogilvy | Chief Creative Officer |
Tim Pashen | Ogilvy And Mather | Copywriter |
Brett Edwards | Ogilvy And Mather | Art Director |
Sally Hastings | Ogilvy | Art Director |
Michael Punton | Ogilvy | Copywriter |
Toby Gill | Ogilvy | Senior Account Manager |
Luke Coulson | One20 | Supervising Producer |
Australians love their ball sports. But baseball has never caught on. We were challenged to rally support for The Melbourne Aces, an Australian League Baseball team. One problem: nobody knew they existed.
Because Aussie sports fans love trick shot videos, we were able sneak baseball under their radar by pitting it against the sports they love. Fans got a shock when they saw Aces players easily executing the hardest plays in their favourite sports - and with baseball equipment. They responded by sharing their opinions across Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and forums.
We created 3 fake videos of Aces players dominating popular Australian ball sports with their baseball skills. We then used the competitive nature of Aussie sports fans against them to generate the biggest response to the videos. We did this by targeting the twitter pages, blogs and websites of their favourite sports and athletes.
The arguing amongst fans caused the videos to go viral, reaching 192 countries in total. Suddenly the whole world was talking about Australian baseball. Even the home of baseball gave us ‘Play Of The Day’ on the 1 sports show, ESPN SportsCenter. Not bad for a $30,000 campaign with no paid media. We generated a huge response resulting in: -Opening game attendance increasing 104% -Membership increasing 39% -Season ticket sales increasing 34%