2010: Harlequins, Marketing Communications - Case Study

Snapshot

Despite a tight budget a clever marketing campaign attracted a sell-out crowd for a Harlequins match that has turned into a brand in its own right.

Key insights

• Harlequins Football Club wanted to attract an audience that extended above and beyond regular rugby fans to create a branded event — The Big Game 2 — that would become a regular spot in the annual events calendar.
• The imaginative multi-media campaign punched far above its weight, with outdoor advertising, national and local media, extensive public relations (PR), sponsorship, player appearances, social networking, e-CRM, digital affiliates, radio and experiential marketing.
• More than 76,000 people filled Twickenham on the day of the match, breaking the record for a standard club fixture.

Summary

The Harlequin Football Club was founded in 1866 (although the first recorded game was not until 1867) as Hampstead Football Club and renamed in 1870. The club has won the Rugby Football Union Club knockout competition on two occasions: The John Player Cup in 1988 and Pilkington Cup in 1991. It was also the first British side to win the European Shield in 2001, going on to win the renamed Parker Pen Challenge Cup again in 2004.

Rugby clubs are not known for big marketing budgets or indeed big brand thinking when it comes to marketing. The Big Game 2 was an attempt to fill Twickenham Stadium with 82,000 people for Harlequins vs. Wasps on December 27th 2009.That was a 600% increase on Harlequins’ normal match-day attendance.

With just £120,000 to spend during a six month build-up, the club had to be creative to reach out to a non-traditional rugby audience by offering a branded package devised by Bamboo Marketing Communications that offered great entertainment, even better value and, hopefully, a first-class game of rugby. The result broke records for a standard club fixture and became a regular spot in the annual events calendar.

Ambitious goals

There were a number of objectives the club was keen to achieve by launching the campaign for The Big Game 2 (TBG2).

• It wanted to establish a new date in the Christmas sporting calendar and extend the reach of rugby in general by marketing this fixture as the perfect alternative Christmas entertainment option.
• In particular, it hoped to introduce a new audience to Harlequins in the hope it would widen its casual supporter base. This would transform the match from being just another Guinness Premiership pool match to a first-class day of family entertainment that would gain a place in people’s Christmas holiday plans.

The campaign had to generate ticket sales far in excess of usual club attendance of 13,000. Its goal was to achieve a 78,000 capacity sell-out (actual capacity is 82,000, but, because of sponsors and box holders, only 78,000 could be sold.). To do that, it had to make the limited budget of £120,000 work as hard as possible through contra-deals, careful media planning, player appearances and third party negotiation.

A core set of creative elements was developed for use in a rolling campaign from July to December 2009, each focusing on different ‘reasons to go’:

• Establishing recognition of the brand The Big Game 2 for future years so that it would be strong enough to stand apart from the core Quins brand.
• A contest featuring two opposing top international players (Nick Evans and Serge Betson), appealing to all rugby fans regardless of club affiliation.
• Stressing the value: a top game at Twickenham from only £10 for adults and £5 for children (Figure 1, 2 and 3).
• A great day’s family entertainment even for those who were not regular rugby followers.

A multi-layered strategy

This was followed by a multi-media campaign targeting a wide south east England audience, including all rugby fans, all sports fans and, crucially, casual or non-supporter friends and families planning alternative Christmas entertainment. A high-profile PR campaign was mounted offering unique access to the team with player front-cover shots and editorial content and sent to a wide variety of national and local press.

There were also roadside six and 48-sheet posters (Figure 4), while the autumn international Rugby Football Union (RFU) shuttle bus carried advertising and cross-track posters were placed in major south and west London stations. The club negotiated the appearance of three X Factor finalists keen to sing in front of what would be such a large audience (Figure 5). This alone extended the reach even further. Studio interviews by players and access to the X Factor secured a one-week on-air Capital posterRadio listener competition to meet X Factor contestants backstage.

There were sponsorship and player appearances at over 40 London and local events. For instance, Danny Care and Ugo Monye switched on Kingston Christmas lights which gained exposure to over 55,000 people, in addition to Radio Jackie
pre-publicity (Figure 6) and live interviews and local press interviews.

The Harlequin Honeys embarked on a six-month flyer campaign at relevant London and local events, bars, pubs and restaurants, including heavyweight presence at the autumn internationals. There were digital online partnerships with organisations such as Visit London, Evening Standard, SKY, RFU, Kempton Park, Virgin Active, RFU Supporters Club, Kew Gardens and Richmond Council, along with inclusion in their newsletters in return for low-value competitions.

A constant stream of behind-the-scenes content featuring players was built up to feed onto Facebook fan pages and Twitter. There was also an ongoing e-shot campaign. Finally, photo shoots of various celebrities wearing the charity match-day shirt were organised which gave access to non-traditional rugby media. For example, Monye and David Strettle dressed in rugby kit with Caprice modelling her new range of lingerie with the theme: “You show me your kit and I’ll show you mine”

A clever mix of media

Outdoor

The principal aim was to spend as little as possible on conventional paid-for media. Where the club did need to spend money, the chosen media had to deliver impact and longevity. Outdoor was chosen as the primary vehicle to generate awareness in the two months prior to the event. Research showed that outdoor indexed well against the club’s core ABC1 family audience who are socially active, use public transport to get to and from work and spend a high proportion of their time out of the home.

Transport media (train stations) were used for their high dwell time, with 48-sheet and six-sheets selected to target ABC1 homes and key arterial travel routes. The CENSYS planning tool was used to map sites to homes and locations such as train stations, schools and offices, thereby minimising wastage and ensuring that the campaign had as great an impact as possible in the key engagement period of November to December. By booking when it did, the club’s two-week week campaign stayed up in many cases for over two months.

Newspapers

The main focus was on PR exclusives, with paid-for space in the Evening Standard.

Local magazines

Through negotiated ad spend/ PR contra-deals the club reached a combined circulation of 750,000 lifestyle magazines, delivered to ABC1 households in south and west London.

Buses

Advertising was placed on 15 RFU shuttle bus sides which then serviced normal routes on non-match days. These buses were parked in a line facing the 82,000 people exiting Twickenham Stadium during the autumn internationals.

Enjoying a big win

At 3.30pm on December 27th 76,716 people walked into Twickenham Stadium and sat down to be entertained by a giant sea eagle delivering the match ball, three X Factor finalists singing the Harlequins’ club song, an Abba tribute band, opera singers and finally, as the teams took to the field, spectacular pyrotechnics launched from the stadium roof. This attendance broke the record for a standard club pool fixture. It also met the key objective of building a brand, complimentary to Harlequins but able to stand alone.

This game was not intended to be a major revenue generator and the intangible rewards of building a wider regular club supporter base and the re-building of Quins’ brand equity following a difficult summer were impossible to quantify. But the game still generated a respectable profit on a marketing investment of £120,000.

A big pat on the back
The achievement drew praise from many within the rugby community and one of the most respected commentators in the sport, Stephen Jones of The Sunday Times, wrote:

“The extraordinary success of Big Game 1 and Big Game 2 has changed the face of professional rugby in England completely. When more than 70,000 go along to watch a regular-season club match, albeit between deadly rivals such as Harlequins and Wasps, then everything we knew about rugby’s appeal has to be rewritten. Other clubs will be anxiously searching for their own equivalent games and pressure on clubs to upgrade their capacities will be enormous.

The courage and vision of Harlequins and the strategies of their marketing agency, Bamboo Marketing Communications, for the Big Games has reaped an incredible reward and has drawn thousands of new faces into rugby’s orbit. And re-affirmed rugby’s claim to be the best day out in sport.”

And in his Sunday Telegraph column, Paul Ackford wrote:

“You know when an event is taking off when it comes with its own shorthand — TBG2. The Big Game: 2 for the uninitiated, and where were you hiding while the spectacle was marketed?”

Chris Foy in The Daily Mail wrote:

“A vibrant atmosphere here at HQ as Big Game 2 passed off as a triumph of ambition and marketing.”

 

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