2014 Bronze Best Print Advertising Including Inserts

Client The Sun (News UK)

How did the campaign make a difference? This season, The Sun’s fantasy football game Dream Team underwent a mammoth change and included a free two-month trial of Sun+, a perfect accompaniment for any footy fan.

But how do you get 600,000+ fans to give their credit card details for what was previously a FREE fantasy football game?

By (nicely) calling out fans for their footballing infidelity, The Sun successfully retained existing players and attracted new ones to Dream Team and drove trials of Sun+ and Sun Goals.

The campaign delivered outstanding, over-target results with Sun Goals usage up 678% and an 8:1 ROI.

Strategy The killer campaign insight was that fans are closet cheats. Give them the excuse and they’ll jump at the chance to pick rival players. Last year 69% of Man United fans chose a Man City player – a taboo on the terraces, but an unspoken truth.

Within a strong integrated campaign, each channel played a different role to ensure the right message at the right time.

Press ads created awareness and urgency; emails reminded, educated and incentivised; digital display retargeted and took on hard acquisition; social channels engaged via the hashtag #DTconfessions; in-app messaging reminded and acquired.

The campaign team tracked signups by the hour, identified lulls and responded with media bursts – with planned activity at critical moments such as the Community Shield.

Together these channels provided a successful customer journey united by a distinctive tone of voice.

Creativity ‘It’s not cheating when it’s your dream team’ became a celebration of a footballing truth – honest, cheeky, with a simple story. The line got football fans across the UK debating and confessing – whilst the confident, controversial, bantering tone made it easier to ask for credit card details at sign-up.

The press ads used rich and humorous photography to bring the campaign line to life with comic, mock-dramatic tableaux. The art direction was striking but the flexibility of the idea meant the imagery could be downweighted where necessary and a typographic creative approach use in small-space media.

Four different executions, each with its own charmingly mischievous angle, made it possible to create new intrigue in newspapers every day. And as the campaign reached its climax, more urgency was added to the message – reminding players of the looming deadline.

Results Social media response to the campaign was immediate and positive – thousands of fans shared their #DTconfessions and grassed up mates for ‘cheating’. It was good-humoured, self-aware fun. And it worked…like a dream.

Positive sentiment outweighed negative by 20:1 in the first week, #DTconfessions trended UK-wide for three consecutive days and the campaign delivered a social reach of 17 million, plus 72,000 engagements, in just 16 days.

The campaign led to 637,000 Dream Team sign-ups – up 6% versus target – including 29% new users and 38% more paying users than targeted, with a potential net worth of £3.3m and a potential annualised net worth of £40m.

Overall, this Dream Team campaign gave an impressive 8:1 ROMI and, most importantly, increased Sun Goals usage by a huge 678%.