November’s top 5 Best Branded Football Content Campaigns

This series, in partnership with Snack Media, will look at the best branded football campaigns from advertising to social media on a monthly basis as Digital Sport evaluates how the biggest names in business are using their partnerships in football to create stand-out content. 

Football is relentless & Fans are consumed in it all the time, whether it be when watching TV or scrolling through their social media feed. With it being so constant, how does a brand find a way to stand out from the crowd and deliver a content campaign more memorable and effective than the hundreds it competes with on a daily basis?

We’ve found the five from November that we believe stand out above all the rest.

1. Redbull’s five tips for Football Manager 2020

Football Manager is always one of the biggest talking points come the end of the calendar year. It releases just in time for Christmas and offers a yearly update on the previous game, with new kits, players, leagues and more to enjoy. Features upgrade every year too, with this year’s game presenting each player with a vision and targets to hit yearly. The realistic nature of FM has just gone up another level.

Red Bull has celebrated the release of the new game by offering a five-tip guide for gamers to follow. This guide could be found online and was pushed on social media with adverts often appearing on instagram.

This campaign was a smart move from Leipzig. Firstly, it was a great way for Red Bull to earn engagement from football fans who wanted to learn more about the new release, who wanted to be ready once the game went live, as well as it was a smart way to remind everyone of the company’s involvement in football, owning both RB Leipzig, Red Bull Salzburg and of course New York Red Bulls. But the main reason why this was such a smart move for Red Bull was that they used the hype, online discussion and anticipation of the game’s release to become part of the conversation. This made them relevant at a time where a lot of eyes on the footballing community would have been on the game, and now their branding can be seen with it.

You can find a link to the guide by clicking here.

2. Volkswagen, Euro 2020

With Euro 2020 due to hit football fans in the upcoming summer, sponsors are well underway with their promotion of the tournament and looking for angles in which they can promote their own companies with the game. Volkswagen are no different, and have acted by embracing the all-European football tournament that’s to come.

Volkswagen has been particularly involved in promoting diversity in the game, as is clear from an extract from their website

“Volkswagen therefore addresses not only the national team and the women’s and junior national teams, but also the 21 regional associations and the 25,000 clubs. For many years, the brand has supported amateurs and professionals, men and women, adults and children in the practice of their favourite sport. Among other things, it hosts the Volkswagen Junior Masters, Germany’s largest football tournament for C-Juniors, and supports cultural projects such as the 11mm International Football Film Festival. Volkswagen has also supported deaf football at regional level, the training of junior trainers in Lower Saxony and the German Academy for Football Culture. As part of the partnership, Volkswagen also supports fans travelling to the stadium, car-pooling teams for away games and parents driving their children to the football pitch weekend-after-weekend.”

The website includes a guide to all the cities and stadiums in Europe being used for the Euros, and it’s incredibly fun and interesting, like none seen till now. Clever graphics and stats help to create the imagery for fans to enjoy, whilst also teaching you a lot about the 2020 tournament.

Volkswagen are also presenting benefits that are more within their field. Free-Floating & Ride-Pooling shuttles will be available throughout the tournament. Here’s what their website had to say…

“Fans and guests [get] the opportunity to explore the venues free of charge with an on-demand shuttle service. Volkswagen is combining two different forward-looking mobility concepts: free-floating and ride-pooling. Passengers can use the shuttle service in a specific area of operation at any possible location and get on-and-off from anywhere in this area – also known as free-floating. In addition, passengers share the vehicle with other passengers travelling in a similar direction – also known as ride pooling. The aim is to use the shuttles at the venues to help relieve the already crowded inner cities during major sporting events.”

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3. Booking.com helping you find your best European stay

“Score the perfect accommodation for you group/partners/clients” is the slogan on Booking.com’s website, and it’s all part of their bid to help you find the perfect place to stay throughout your Euro 2020 journey. There are up to 150,000 match-day rooms to choose from, and they want to help you find the best one for you.

They’re not just offering you the platform to go and make it happen for yourself, they’re even offering a service to ease the process. By submitting a request with certain details, Booking.com will find you options for your stay so you don’t have to do the potentially hours of research involved with this sort of task.

They’re really using their sponsorship of Euro 2020 to gain an edge in the market, especially during that month from June to July. It’s a clever campaign and allows them to be at the forefront for travellers during the competition. Like Volkswagen, they’ve taken full advantage of their sponsorship to get their branding out there and offer a service beyond the norm, and they’ve done it very well.

You can check out Booking.com’s website by clicking here.

4. Adidas in women’s football

Adidas are proud sponsors of Arsenal Football Club and they didn’t hide that in their reaction to Arsenal Women’s 2-0 win at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium against their bitter rivals. The team were magnificent and the win was capped off by Kim Little and Vivianne Miedema’s goals which saw the derby end in favour of the red half.

The three-striped clothing brand took to Twitter to push their support of Arsenal Football Club, and to reiterate their belief that the Gunners remain the biggest club in North London.

Adidas have been really smart by engaging in the conversation that this historic Women’s Super League game created. Women’s football is getting more attention than ever before, so to make themselves a part of it will improve the brand’s image as they’re seen to be engaging in a range of sports, not just the men’s football clubs.

5. Adidas’ Juve 4th Kit

For our fifth instalment for this month’s series we are once again looking at Adidas. While their tweets on Arsenal’s Women’s team weren’t necessarily part of a grander campaign, they certainly did put a lot of work into the announcement of Juventus’ 4th kit.

Usually a club will enjoy three kits, with the odd team having a separate European kit to play in. The Old Lady played in their very unique fourth jersey on the back of the release and a partnership with Palace London. The kit, especially as it’s so unique in design, will undoubtedly bring in many sales and draw much attention.

Along with the unique kit, a unique video was posted to celebrate the launch.

But this seems to be part of a wider campaign for Adidas, with reports that Arsenal were due to unveil a fourth kit as well, anticipated for the start of 2020. It’s unclear where or when this announcement will be made but James Webb, Adidas Product Designer for Licensed Apparel, said back in the summer: “Yeah, there’s something in the pipeline. I don’t want to give anything away.

“Clubs are signing different sponsorship with FIFA or Konami for instance and we have to respect the partnerships there.

“The collection of jerseys that were released last season, they all fit under the FIFA umbrella, but now you see teams like Juventus stepping out.

“So there is something in the pipeline, but it’s geared towards Arsenal, not FIFA.”

This article was sponsored by Snack Media, which is a leading independent sports digital media company with over 30m sports fans. They specialise in multi-channel content creation, distributed at scale. Through data driven engagement strategies Snack Media creates authentic connections between brands & fans. To find out how Snack Media can connect your brand with 30m sports fans, contact rupert@snack-media.com.

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