The impact of sports marketing on brand perception is more powerful than it has ever been, and Weber Shandwick’s experience in the field stands unrivalled. As a partner of Premier Sports Network, Weber Shandwick support the network in promoting growth and positive change across the industry as well as advising on the important role public relations plays for teams, associations and in the career development of the athletes themselves.

Weber Shandwick work with some of the biggest sports brands across the globe to fuel the imagination and aspiration of billions of sports fans, delivering campaigns to launch new tournaments with leading sports bodies, supporting winning Olympic bids, leading crisis communications responses and developing sponsorship campaigns. We take a look at some of Weber Shandwick’s recent success stories in sport.

#WRITENOW - Ending child food poverty with Marcus Rashford

Weber Shandwick launched the integrated campaign #WriteNow with The Food Foundation and Marcus Rashford, to encourage members of the public to petition MPs to end child food poverty.

This included development of the strategy, talent management, media strategy, digital strategy and content development.

Weber Shandwick has already secured 230+ pieces of coverage, reaching 3BN+ across broadcast, print and online outlets. This includes interviews on BBC Breakfast and Good Morning Britain, as well as widespread broadcast news coverage and print and online coverage appearing in key media targets including BBC News, Lad Bible, The Guardian, The Times, Mail Online and Metro.

Social media conversation has so far generated 10.3M organic impressions, 191K engagements and 9.7k total mentions, with 126 mentions and support from influencers (40k+ followers) including Jamie Oliver, Tom Kerridge and Save The Children.

Ebay shirts for heroes

EBay UK, in partnership with #PlayersTogether hosted a first-of-its-kind, digital fundraising raffle of 500 Premier League signed shirts, “#ShirtsForHeroes”, to help raise funds for NHS Charities Together during the COVID crisis. In total, the raffle raised £1M.

Following its success, #PlayersTogether then launched a second raffle in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, “#ShirtsForChange” on eBay UK. All funds raised went to The Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, to support young people in the BAME community.

To generate momentum for the raffles and encourage the public to get involved, Weber Shandwick targeted broadcast, print, online and social media and achieved widespread, positive coverage, raising awareness of the campaign.

Weber Shandwick also secured interviews with some of the footballers involved such as Jordan Henderson and Mark Noble, which appeared on Sky News and in top-tier national titles, including The Times.

The campaign achieved 114 pieces of coverage, across broadcast, print, online and social. reaching nearly 3 billion consumers.

Ryobi Re-Build

Ryobi were looking for an agency to support them in raising their brand awareness in the UK to a broader consumer audience. Having assessed the competitive landscape WS developed a campaign that looked to raise awareness of furniture poverty and contribute to solving the issue as well by offering their expertise and tools to organizations that work tirelessly in the space. Furniture poverty is very much a hidden horror in the UK – some 2million people live in furniture poverty but it is largely unseen compared to issues such as food poverty which were thrust into the spotlight by Marcus Rashford in 2020.

The campaign was both local and national – initial efforts focused on partnering with High Wycombe charity Central Aid. Through the partnership, Ryobi donated tools to Central Aid and also time from Ryobi technical experts, who turned the Central Aid warehouse into a workshop for upcycling donated and fly-tipped furniture, putting it back into the local community.

Local Wycombe Wanderers football and cultural icon Adebayo Akinfenwa also joined the campaign, meeting people in need, speaking to local media and helping the upcycling and delivery of furniture too.

Local media coverage was strong in print, online and on radio, and set up the full national launch at the end of July 2021. The campaign launched with an array of video content across social media channels, backed by Akinfenwa as well as comedian Katy Brand and Dom (of Dick and Dom TV fame). A further partnership with the Reuse Network – an organisation that supports a network of more than 100 furniture reuse charities – helped spread the message across social media and print and online media.

Coverage was achieved in the Sun and the Big Issue, while social media impact has been strong with great, positive engagement across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Vauxhall Father’s Day

To strengthen the link between Vauxhall’s football sponsorship and family, Weber Shandwick created a social campaign around Father’s Day to coincide with the World Cup qualifier matches.

Weber Shandwick challenged two players from each home nation to go head-to-head in a ‘Dad Joke Face Off’, with commentary by renowned sports broadcaster Sam Matterface. They also drove fans to the Vauxhall football website via Twitter, where they had the chance to win tickets to take their dad to see comedian John Bishop live.

Weber Shandwick produced nation-specific videos and a hero montage video, which were posted on Vauxhall’s and the Football Association’s social channels in the build up and during Father’s Day. The campaign had 9 million social impressions, 3.8 million video views, and a PR reach of 96.7 million.

Bud Light: The Victory Fridge

Bud Light alongside Weber Shandwick provided a special activation to NFL’s Cleveland Browns in order to satisfy their need to polish their image and reinforce fan engagement in a period of repetitive defeats.

Weber Shandwick launched the “Bud Light Victory Fridge” campaign in Cleveland, placing 10 remotely unlockable mini fridges containing Bud Light beers in bars for fans to enjoy in the case of a first victory since 2016.

The fridge announcement dominated conversation in the sports world and far beyond including placements such as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Mashable, Forbes, USA Today, and ESPN.

Coverage exceeded some 400 million impressions with Bud Light at the centre of the conversation and the joyous scenes of celebration when that victory was finally achieved in 2018 and the fridges burst open.

About Weber Shandwick

Weber Shandwick is a leading global communications network and delivers next-generation solutions to brands, businesses and organisations in major markets around the world.

Led by world-class strategic and creative thinkers and activators, Weber Shandwick have won some of the most prestigious awards in the industry. Weber Shandwick was named to Ad Age’s Agency A-List in 2020 and Best Places to Work in 2019. Weber Shandwick was also honoured as PRovake’s Global Agency of the Decade in 2020 and PRWeek’s Global Agency of the Year in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. The firm has earned more than 135 Lions at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Data-led communications, with earned ideas at the core, the agency deploys leading and emerging technologies to inform strategy, develop critical insights and heighten communications impact across sectors and speciality areas, including brand and B2B marketing, sports communications and marketing, healthcare marketing, change management, employee engagement, corporate reputation, crisis management, data and analytics, technology, public affairs, social impact and financial communications. Weber Shandwick is part of the Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG).

For more information, visit www.webershandwick.co.uk