Since FitBits hit the market in 2009, we’ve gotten used to data capturing our every movement, right down to our heartbeats. As we see athletes turn up in the latest cutting edge gear at major sporting events, ad campaigns are also making use of the latest technology to find creative ways to connect with audiences.
Jose Ramirez, says, “At every sporting event, there are hundreds of pieces of technology capturing the athlete’s biometrics, crowd noise levels, and everything else in between. You can argue that even the photographs that journalists take are pieces of data.” This insight, alongside scouring thousands of images, led to the campaign “Joy is the Ultimate Trophy” for Michelob Ultra Campaign. Ramirez continues, “Our approach was to find data to help crack our idea and ultimately bring it to life.”
Social media continues to have a powerful role to play. Becky McOwen-Banks believes that all brands are built on social. Vayner Media has been working with TikTok on “changing the perception of hard core sports fans that TikTok is the channel where they live the joy of the sport they love.”
Creatives tend to see data as an enemy, but more often than not it points to the solution. It defines the problem we need to solve, and creativity needs a problem to thrive.
Owen Lee, FCB Inferno
Vayner Media has used social media campaigns for the EUROs, Africa Cup of Nations, Six Nations, Bundersluiga to connect with audiences emotionally and draw insights that are applied to larger campaigns that go beyond social into outdoor and TV, meaning the connection could be experienced by many more people and last much longer. “The work on social did the emotional piece, enabling the sponsorships of events to really make sense beyond that match or series,” says McOwen-Banks.
For Alex Bennett-Grant, a big part of being a creative business is to apply “cultural intelligence” to the huge amount of data clients will inevitably have already gathered. Bennett-Grant says, “They’re coming to us for something to translate and to make actionable”. And he believes that ‘cultural intelligence’ is likely to become even more important when it comes to “figuring out how to crack the code for web3 and metaverse marketing…In the end, it’s a recognition that as much as you can try to retain participation in physical, traditional outdoor sport, the universal sport is boundless. And we’re having to build out far more sophisticated strategies for community.”
