Why is this work relevant for PR?

New Zealand is rugby obsessed. The players, heroes, and Eden Park, the game's spiritual home. It’s a sport that dominates the airwaves and lounge conversations across the country. Due to the government’s hasty response to COVID-19 the pandemic quickly turned from a health crisis to an economic one. With small business suffering, NZers defaulting on mortgage, wages and rent payments, pressure mounted on big banks to step up and make a meaningful difference. ASB took it upon themselves to not just say they were here to help, but instead inspire Kiwis to support local small businesses and kickstart the economy.

Background

There are 530,000 small businesses in New Zealand representing 97% of all businesses. They’re the engine room of the economy, accounting for 28% of employment and contribute over 25% of NZ’s GDP When New Zealand moved into total COVID-19 lockdown, they were all forced to shut their doors. The economy came to a halt and a health crisis became an economic one. These small businesses, the lifeblood of the New Zealand economy were no longer able to serve the communities they were so invested in and immensely important to. ASB Bank wanted to help kickstart the economy by helping small businesses get through these government enforced lockdowns. The objective was to inspire the New Zealand Public with a feel-good story that instilled consumer confidence as well as increasing ASB Bank’s brand love scores by 2 points.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

A national TV, OOH, PR and digital campaign encouraged small business owners to apply for their own All Black sponsorship campaign. Each entry was analysed by a financial team at the bank and the legal and marketing team of our sponsorship stakeholders. 1000s of campaigns were then ideated. The information provided in the application acted as a creative brief to the creatives. Consultation with the small business and the New Zealand Rugby Union refined the executions that included a digital film, OOH, bus or press ad, PR, Facebook, search and digital spend and free targeted media placements. But one lucky business, Coopers Catch, a small fish and chip shop, received a lot more - winning naming rights to NZ’s national stadium, Eden Park, becoming the first naming rights sponsor of the famous ground in its 117 year history. Its name beamed around the country for the All Black’s biggest game.

Describe the PR strategy (30% of vote)

The key outtake we wanted from the New Zealand Public was ASB’s commitment and support to SME recovery. To maximise media coverage, we withheld the name of the small business until the opportune moment Hero the small business as the face of the campaign and put the owners forward as spokespeople Maximise earned media opportunities aligned with key target audiences, leveraging consumer, business, mainstream, sports, regional and international media Amplify the campaign through owned channels and networks All existing Eden Park branded signage was swapped out High quality videos and images were produced for media and social distribution, including a reveal video with Coopers Catch that was played at the media conference. Servings of fish and chips with blue cod shipped from the South Island were packaged up with Coopers Catch Park branding and hand delivered to tier 1 newsrooms across Auckland to formally announce the new naming rights partner.

Describe the PR execution (20% of vote)

We leveraged the element of surprise and unprecedented nature of the announcement. Tease 24-hours ahead of the official announcement we leaked the news to top tier national and sports media. Announce Media release distribution A joint media release from ASB and Eden Park confirmed that naming rights were being given away – the twist- for one week and to a small business in need. Launch Media conference Start of game week, ASB hosted a media conference at Eden Park announcing the new naming rights sponsor, inviting top tier broadcast, print, digital and sports media Media announcement ASB and Eden Park issued a second media release announcing Coopers Catch as the selected small business. Signage All Eden Park branded signage was replaced with Coopers Catch Park branding Radio interviews The owners of Coopers Catch visited 12 radio newsrooms International distribution The media release was distributed to key international markets.

List the results (30% of vote)

Success was achieved through a variety of tactics that leveraged the element of surprise and unprecedented nature of the announcement. The public relations approach was bold, considered and planned meticulously to meet business and communications objectives, The news leak resulted in Newshub, TVNZ and NZ Herald breaking the news that Eden Park was set to give up naming rights, with the announcement debated online. The distribution resulted in 35 pieces of coverage across tier 1 media, business, consumer and sports media The second media release announcing Coopers Catch as the selected small business, resulted in 57 pieces of earned coverage across tier 1, broadcast, consumer, marketing, business, sports and regional media outlets. The owners of Coopers Catch conducted 12 radio newsrooms interviews This inherently New Zealand campaign achieved 10 pieces of international coverage across Australia, the UK and Spain – including coverage in ESPN. 1700 applications 70,000 ASBBusinessHub unique visits 25.8M People reached (both domestically and globally) Over $3 million earned media value for Coopers Catch Fish and Chip Shop ASB Bank recorded their highest ever brand love score from 99 to 111 points Awareness of ASB All Black sponsorship doubled 47 radio items 13 print items 32 online items 15 TV items 10 international news items Individual success for small businesses featured in the campaign varied from increased social and website traffic, to new user sign ups, to selling out of stock, to opening new stores, to serving record numbers of customers.

Please tell us how disruption in your market place inspired the work

The All Blacks had only ever advertised huge brands. Eden Park had never sold its naming rights in its 117 year history. It’s the spiritual home of not just New Zealand rugby, but world rugby, and the thought of its name being changed to that of a large corporation was blasphemous. COVID changed the rule on everything. ASB bank adopted it’s New Zealand Rugby Sponsorship and stand naming of Eden Park to serve not itself but its customers through the economic fallout of COVID enforced lockdowns which saw the majority of New Zealand small businesses having to shut up shop.