#BeHeard: Brand integration into the Fight of the Century
Beats and Sky Sports
#BeHeard: Brand integration into the Fight of the Century
Beats wanted to establish the brand as the common denominator between music and sport. Partnering with Sky Sports, Beats gave fans an all access pass to the biggest boxing event of the century through exclusive content in the build-up and including the night itself, dominating all social conversation. The results were knock-out across engagement, awareness and most importantly, sales.
0
%
increase in eCommerce sales
0
%
increase in Beats website visits during fight week
0
m
views across all AJ ‘#BeHeard’ content on social media
Challenge
Beats had identified the power of music within sport as an untapped opportunity. Its winning formula of ‘Music + Sports = Beats introduced a unique marketing approach to the headphones category. Few moments act as a stronger metaphor for what Beats stand for than the tension and crescendo of passion around high performance sport. It’s the sound that inspires athletes to be heard through their performances and passion.
Insight
On 29th April 2017 Anthony Joshua (AJ) took on the fight of his life against Wladimir Klitschko. Future Great vs Current Great in the biggest fight of the Century, was anticipated by millions across the globe. Rising star of heavyweight boxing and brand ambassador, Anthony Joshua, presented Beats with a huge opportunity.
As the official fight broadcaster, Sky Sports owned the connection between boxing fans and the event, by partnering with Sky, Beats had the canvas to launch a campaign befitting the Hype.
Idea
A new type of partnership evolved. Beats by Dre and Sky Sports partnered to share content through their joint investment in AJ. This partnership mutually benefited both brands through promotion of both the Pay Per View fight on Sky Sports and AJ’s brand association with Beats to millions of fans. Sky Sports could leverage Beats’ association with AJ through exclusive footage rights beyond the fight and likewise, Beats’ could take advantage of Sky’s audience and platforms. Such an association would allow Beats to take the brand beyond the team bus and the locker room, into the stadium.
Activation
The idea was to turn the big event into an all access pass for fans, to be fully immersed into AJ’s road to Wembley, and for Beats to be at the heart of it. The partnership needed to create content, buy and activate media in real-time to engage huge numbers of fans and connect them to the fight experience beyond the live broadcast. They needed to tap into the emotions of new fans of the Sport due to AJ’s rise in popularity, and associate Beats with one of the most anticipated fights in modern history. Sky gave Beats exclusive access to its production crew and live footage. In return, Sky was invited to Beats’ film shoots, which gave it access to the brand’s ambassadors. This seamlessly wove Beats into the crucial moments throughout the fight narrative.
Pre-fight
Anticipation was built to fever pitch, with distribution of AJ content across multiple platforms in the 5 days building up to the main event, all tagged with #BEHEARD. This included TV Spots across the Sky Channel portfolio, digital, Sky Go linear, PC VoD, social media and on skysports.com. Sky Sports boxing used Twitter Amplify for pre-roll adverts of AJ sparring and wearing Beats headphones to promote the live event. This allowed Beats to reach new audiences and be the driver of social conversation around the fight, with #BeHeard.
Home-Page take over’s across skysports.com and in the Sky Sports App, along with Snapchat discover take overs further expanded the reach and placed Beats in prime position. Beats owned assets, including ambassadors Dr Dre, Harry Kane and Rio Ferdinand, were also used to create excitement on social media. Furthermore, playing on the Music + Sports theme, Beats extended the partnership to Apple Music to create AJ’s ringside playlist, bringing the everyday fan into the heart of the action.
The Locker Room
Exclusively on Facebook live, Sky Sports broadcast footage of AJ in his locker room, giving fans and viewers a unique and unprecedented access to see AJ in preparation for the fight. The footage was also shared on Twitter to increase hype around what was a true first of its kind in the sport. Live at Wembley, fans were invited to tweet their well wishes to AJ, these were then streamed live across perimeter boards around the arena, offering fans the chance to #BEHEARD by AJ himself.
The Ringwalk
Broadcast live in Wembley and to millions of homes via Sky Box Office, exclusive Beats footage was integrated into AJ’s Ringwalk VT, bringing Beats directly into the fight countdown. Extending to fans beyond the live event, Beats had exclusive access to Sky’s raw broadcast coverage to create real time engagement videos that were shared via Beats Facebook and Twitter handles.
Seconds before the first bell, a unique turbo break was broadcast live on Sky Sports, a Beats #BEHEARD pre-roll, bringing Beats into the heart of the fight and encouraging social conversation.
In the triumphant 11th round of the fight, fans across the country rejoiced and Beats were at the forefront of the celebration, quickly editing footage to share across social media.
4m views & 890k engagements across all AJ ‘#BeHeard’ content on social media
Brand mentions peaked during fight night with +1.5k mentions on Twitter – more than any other sponsor and more than @skysportsboxing
Twitter amplify pre-roll videos received a whopping 13 million views!
87million impressions delivered across Homepage Take Overs on SkySports.com and in App
6 million impressions achieved through Snapchat discover
Sky Sport Boxing Real time engagement social media videos posted to FB had an impressive 10million Video views
Awareness
Beats pummelled AJ’s other sponsors, dominating Share of Voice by owning 65% of all views and 83% of all engagement across fight week and fight night
Organic and earned media from Sky Sports and SPORTbible delivered an additional audience of 1.5M social media followers, contributing to over £30k in earned media value
Beats by Dre social media videos created with Sky Sports Boxing broadcast coverage and boxing archive footage had 5.3 million Video views, 58k Likes, 1.8k Comments and 6.9k Shares
Sales
Ecommerce sales +18% and website visits up 350% week-on-week during fight week across EMEA
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