The 09/10 football season is massive as England finalise their preparations to bring home the World Cup in the summer.
The difference between good and great players is their ability to Make The Difference. Nike want to inspire all football players to step up and Make The Difference this season.
The thing about ‘The Difference’ is that it’s something bestowed upon you, not something that can be claimed. It is something you earn. Consider Iniesta in last season’s UCL final. Despite shattering Chelsea’s dreams with his last minute winner, immediately after the final whistle Lampard went over, shook Iniesta’s hand and swopped shirts: The ultimate sign of respect.
So, we at Mindshare needed initially to excite people about Nike’s vision for the season.
Rooney, Theo, Arshavin and Ribery spearheaded the AV campaign, sharing the Nike vision through the eyes of someone inspirational to football fans. Launching with a high profile top/tail spot in Man U vs Arsenal on August 29th and football takeovers on Skysports.com. The campaign extended into other high visibility spots such as the half time break (first in the break) in last nights England v Croatia match.
See the films here
Having shared the Nike vision, we needed to stop talking and start doing.
First up, we created a season preview supplement distributed in FourFourTwo magazine, featuring Rooney commenting on who will Make The Difference for each team this season.
Facebook is a platform with discussion at the heart and over the last couple of weeks we’ve added 140,000 fans to the Nikefootball page through a combination of “Become A Fan” ads and strong organic growth through the release of dozens of pieces of new content for fans to comment on.
Last night we hosted a live webchat on the Nikefootball fan page debating who is Making The Difference throughout England v Croatia. Recruited through a Facebook event invite ad and a You Tube Home Page takeover with a Facebook call to action, we attracted 1,400 active participants for the webchat.
We’re planning further Facebook events, so become a fan to join in!
Furthermore, a partnership with Skysports.com is allowing us to fuel the debate around who is Making The Difference on a weekly basis throughout the season. Editorially led, Sky will pick a key game each week and write a preview on who is likely to Make The Difference and then a review on who actually Made The Difference. Users can login in via Facebook connect and have their say so fuelling further debate through comments appearing on Facebook as well as Sky.
Have your say on who Made The Difference last night here
Lots of further ideas planned throughout the season to keep football fans engaged all the way to the World Cup – will keep you posted as and when they’re ready to share!
