The Campaign

Being one of the six teams in the newly re-formed Australian Baseball league, The Melbourne Aces suffered from low awareness amongst sport fans, which unfortunately led to poor attendance figures and a lack of season memberships. Our objectives were three fold: 1) To put Australian Baseball on the map, and increase awareness of The Melbourne Aces, 2) Increase individual ticket sales to the 2013/14 season and 3) Increase memberships for the 2013/14 season. With a limited budget, we needed our audience to create our reach for us, so our campaign comprised of 3 unbelievable trick-shot videos featuring Aces players hitting, pitching and catching baseballs on the golf course, at the bowling alley and on the hockey field at a skill level never seen before anywhere in the world. Essentially we targeted other popular Australian ball sports and showed the Aces players beating them at their own game. We then launched the videos into the social-sphere where they were picked up by the Australian media causing the videos to go viral. Before long the whole world was talking about Australian baseball (and The Melbourne Aces). Upon reviewing our results at the end of the campaign, it’s fair to say we hit our objectives out of the park: • Opening weekend attendance increased 104% from 2012/13 season • 2013/14 season ticket sales increased by 34% from 2012/13 season • Increase of 39% in membership sales from previous 2012/13 season All for a campaign with no paid media, produced for under $30,000.

The Brief

We had 3 key objectives: 1. Increase awareness of The Australian Baseball League and in particular the Melbourne Aces 2. Increase ticket sales for Melbourne Aces home games throughout the 2013/14 season 3. Increase season memberships for the 2013/14 season.

Results

For a tiny budget of $30,000 we hit all expectations out of the park: • The videos generated an estimated $8,000,000 in earned media • With over 1 million views across 192 countries online • Increasing online mentions of ‘The Melbourne Aces’ by 81% The increased awareness generated unprecedented business results: • Opening weekend attendance increased 104% from 2012/13 season • 2013/14 season ticket sales increased by 34% from 2012/13 season • Increase of 39% in membership sales from previous 2012/13 season

Execution

We created 3 web videos of Aces players dominating popular Aussie ball sports with their baseball skills. These were uploaded to YouTube with no visible ties to the Melbourne Aces. We then turned to social media to spark debate - sending targeted tweets to high profile Australian sports players and sports media websites. Just as we hoped, a few days of arguing and sharing from opinionated sports fans launched the videos into YouTube’s most popular and then onto the radar of world media. We had started a global conversation about Australian baseball – reaching its peak when ESPN SportsCentre in the USA featured us as their ‘Play Of The Day’.

The Situation

8 out of 10 Australians didn’t even know we had a professional Baseball League. In Australia, there is a plethora of mainstream sports to consume. Every week all forms of media are dominated by new headlines relating to the latest news on the AFL (Aussie Rules), Golf, Hockey and Cricket just to name a few. Unfortunately though, Baseball just doesn’t get any sort of attention or media support whatsoever. It just isn’t in the game.

The Strategy

To make any sort of noise and be noticed in such a cluttered and competitive space we needed to be clever in ensuring our audience would take notice of us. But how do you do this with virtually zero budget in comparison with Australia’s juggernaut sports? The AFL for example spends $350 million every year marketing its game. By aligning with popular sports such as Golf, Bowling and Hockey, we knew we could tap into the huge existing fan base of each of those sports had and potentially convert them to baseball.