THE UNFOLLOWED

TitleTHE UNFOLLOWED
BrandPUMA AUSTRALIA
Product / ServicePUMA TRAINING
CategoryB03. Social for Mobile
EntrantHAVAS AUSTRALIA Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Idea Creation HAVAS AUSTRALIA Melbourne, AUSTRALIA
Production THE DIRECTORS GROUP Melbourne, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Damian Royce Havas Melbourne Executive Creative Director
Damian Royce Havas Melbourne Executive Creative Director
Liam Travers Havas Melbourne Creative
Joey Newton Havas Melbourne Creative
Alex Roby Havas Melbourne Senior Designer
Matt Houltham Havas Melbourne Group Managing Director
Fiona Warren Havas Melbourne Account Director
Leo Francis Havas Melbourne Production Manager
Lauren Bell Havas Melbourne Operations Director

Background

Situation: With only 5% of market share in Australia, PUMA needed to increase brand loyalty and build stronger awareness of PUMA Training and apparel. Brief and objectives: Target 18-30 Y/O males and females who train 3 or more times per week with a campaign that would attract a new audience and generate brand loyalty.

Describe the creative idea

The sports industry is built on the sponsorship of a famous few, with big brands throwing their support behind the biggest names and influencers, notably in social media. But for every celebrated sports star, there are thousands of unknown and undiscovered athletes that are dedicated to their training but don’t get any recognition. So we turned PUMA into Australia’s largest talent scout, creating a platform for recognising and recruiting dedicated unknown athletes. The campaign scouted these athletes from the street and celebrated them in PUMA social ads that called upon other dedicated athletes to join The Unfollowed and share their training for the opportunity to be sponsored by PUMA and become the face of the 2018 training campaign through social media.

Describe the strategy

Data: With only 5% of market share in Australia and a small budget, PUMA had to connect with their target audience in a different way to other sports brands, which have the luxury of featuring big name global sports superstars. Target audience: 18-30 Y/O males and females who train 3 or more times per week with a campaign that would attract a new audience and generate brand loyalty. Relevance to social platform: Social platforms enabled PUMA to connect directly with our audience via a social insight, start a dialogue and prompt collaboration and social sharing. Approach: We decided to target an audience who like to do things their way and not follow the crowd. Through targeted paid creative executions in Facebook and Instagram, our campaign directly connected with our target audience and then in turn sponsored and showcased them in recognition for their dedication to their sport.

Describe the execution

How it worked: A launch film and supporting social ads celebrated real unknown athletes who get up every single day and train to beat their best without any recognition. The campaign then called upon others to join The Unfollowed and share their training via #theunfollowed. PUMA then sponsored these unknown athletes, showcasing their dedication to the world via paid social ads, while also providing them with support and PUMA gear.

List the results

The once unfollowed became the new faces of PUMA. The impact of the campaign over a 1-month period saw 738 unknown athletes join The Unfollowed, while 1 in 2 young Australians witnessed them via paid and shared social media.

Links

Supporting Webpage