The struggles that the former Scottish champions have had to endure this season have been well documented, with doubts still remaining as to what the future has in store as bidding to buy the troubled club continues.

Life, and business, though at the club has continued as normal though as the end of the season nears and thoughts move to the 2012-13 season.  One of the earliest features of the following season is always the kit launches that occur in April/May at each club.  Rangers are no different….. apart from in their approach.

The clubs Social Media Manager, Rab Boyle explains, “With the on-going success of our Club social media strategy since launch last year, we wanted to find a way to build some buzz around the launch of a very special kit that celebrates the Club’s stunning 1972 Cup Winners’ Cup Final victory and Rangers 140th anniversary using our social channels.”

The clubs social media strategy has been based around the launch of new channels on Facebook and Twitter.  The concentration on these channels (as well as keeping a close tab on others) and integration in other elements of the business has been ongoing and a great case of experimentation to test success.

The kit launch has certainly been one of these cases.

“We knew that if we had told the supporters outright that we were launching a 1972 tribute kit, they would have very easily realised what it was going to look like. It was then that we realised we could use the power of our social networks and our highly engaged fans on Facebook in particular, to build anticipation for its launch on Thursday. We decided that the best way to do this was use the visual storytelling capability of Facebook through Timeline covers to unveil the kit and to get fans talking about what the messages on the timeline meant.”

The use of the new Timeline cover photo’s is certainly a unique one and great use of a very visual element to the platform.  Not only did they release the new look kit on there but the teasing out of the launch to generate interest and word of mouth coverage was a nice touch.

They created 4 different timeline covers, each showing a different section of the kit and telling part of a story about the 1972 victory: In 1972 on a hot, tense night in Barcelona one game changed everything | The Rangers spirit conquered Europe | And 40 years later the spirit lives on.

This is how they looked…

Some great pictures that teased out the launch and look of the kit nicely.  Rab explains what happened during this process;

“The day before and the morning of launch, we changed the timeline covers at regular intervals, making no comment about what the images were of, or what they meant. This meant that fans could release for themselves what was happening and once they had done so, tell their friends. We also introduced a hashtag (#spiritliveson) on the cover pictures which helped to tie together all of our efforts on Twitter once the kit had gone live.

The evening before launch we ran a story on the Club website which said that there was going to be a kit launch the next morning at 11am and announced that it would be shown live on the Club video channel RangersTV – we also teased the kit at the end of our nightly news round up the night before.

All of this build up and preparation meant that when we went live at 11am on Thursday morning there was an audience waiting with anticipation, excited to see what the kit looked like across all of our social channels, our Club TV station and our website, rather than having to wait for pictures to be taken at a press conference, processed and later added to our website.”

Once the tease was complete a new cover picture was uploaded that showed various photos of the new kit and its links with the 1972 Cup Winners Cup Final shirt.

It’s certainly a unique use of Facebook new functionality and one I am sure that will be copied to a certain degree by other clubs and businesses.  The cover photo is a great way of showcasing iconic imagery and an area that can be used in many visually creative ways.