2014 winner: Paddy Power, Cause Related/Highly Commended, Communications - case study

This entry is all about cause-related creativity on a shoestring. Or at least a bootlace. It tells how Paddy Power invited Stonewall to help tackle one of the toughest challenges in sport: homophobia in football.

The game had remained silent on this issue for years – or had been hostile. The media wasn’t interested. And of 5,000 professional players, not one would speak out – let alone come out.

However, in just one week in September, we managed to change all this.
Our big idea was to send rainbow laces to every professional football player in Britain, and ask them to wear them, to show that they were 'Right Behind Gay Footballers'. We then used a barrage of advertising, PR, digital and social media to marshal wider public support.

The result was a cultural phenomenon.
Players from 54 professional clubs wore the laces, from Arsenal to Aberdeen, Everton to East Fife, Norwich to Newcastle. Other sports joined in. Plus politicians, pop stars, actors and even other brands.

The public clamoured for their own laces, so we had to produce another 10,000 pairs. In just 7 days, our campaign generated 400 media stories (with a reach of over 500M) and another 320M impressions on Twitter. In fact, our hashtag alone was used 72,000 times and trended worldwide.

Not once, but twice.
Overall, an amazing 43% of betters were aware of the campaign and of these, 47% thought better of Paddy Power, versus only 4% who thought worse. As a result, Marketing has already named this one of the campaigns of 2013, other countries are adopting it and plans are afoot for an even bigger event this year.

All this for £150k: less than 1% of Paddy Power’s annual budget and less than 0.2% of category spend.

Success on a shoestring indeed.

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