New Balance
Make it to Moscow:
Discovering real football culture in Moscow.
Strategy | Content Creation | Distribution | Paid Media
The Challenge
In a world dominated by Adidas and Nike, drive awareness and engage Gen-Z and young millennials who want to stand out from their mates and convince them to do this by choosing New Balance.
The Work
We planned to activate during the World Cup in Russia, where none of the major team and player sponsor brands wanted to lift the lid on Russia. We uncovered real Russian football culture in a docu-series using voices and channels already familiar with our audiences. We partnered with football YouTubers Charlie Morley, Jemel One Five and Theo Baker to be our stars and bring us to their engaged followings, while our media partner Goal helped drive scale. Our stars would go off the beaten track, playing games with local street footballers who showed us the real Russia, bringing our audience target something different from the glossy, A-List footballer polished content.
The Role I Played
I led the content strategy and helped identify which football YouTubers we should partner with. Working with the creative team, I helped contribute towards the narrative of the docu-series and how we would rollout the content with a distribution plan across the New Balance, YouTuber and Goal platforms.
The Impact
The docu-series published over the month of the world cup reached 9 million fans across NB, Goal and the influencer platforms, securing a 5.6% engagement rate and a 9% follower growth. Won The Drum Marketing Awards in 2019 in the sports category.