Foosball 09 Competition - BMF Sydney

Background

Once again, Sydney recruitment agency, Radar, wanted to launch its inter-agency foosball competition. However, ad agencies have had a pretty rough trot thanks to the Global Financial Crises. Clients have been nervous at best and and in some cases have just disappeared altogether. This had led to rounds of downsizing, and those creatives who still had a job were probably now working twice as hard just to stand still.

With all this going on who had time for, or was interested in, Radar’s foosball tournament?

Idea

The idea was to tap into the mood of the moment and launch a topical campaign that built on what everyone was talking about – the financial crisis.

In Foosball 09, advertising people weren’t playing for pride and glory but for their jobs.

Foosball tables were turned into dimensional mail pieces and sent to the CDs of the 12 invited agencies. A message on the table explained that during the financial crisis, this competition was the best way to find their most valuable employees.

Posters in agencies invited participants to play for their jobs by impressing the boss with their foosball skills.

Print ads ran in industry publications highlighting the importance of this year’s tournament. More posters were created for each round of the six month competition encouraging staff to come along to the matches and lend support for their team. After all, if they lost you might not see them the next day.

A dedicated website was launched for agencies to register teams, post player profiles and view the league table. Match reports for each round were also posted online.

Results

The website went live on April 24, with posters and tables delivered to agencies the next week. Traffic to the website spiked that week with 491 unique visitors.

In just 12 days, there were 148 registrations, a conversion rate of just under 1 in 3 visitors.

For the competition to be a success, Radar needed three teams from each agency to register, a total of 36 all up. The campaign was 203% above target with 73 teams taking part, involving the cream of agency talent across Sydney.

Even ‘Campaign Brief’ commented positively on the campaign.

Our Thoughts

Radar’s foosball tournaments in Sydney are a tradition now and great fun. It’s brilliant that Dave, ex-Creative Director and now celebrity recruiter, is doing it again and this piece continues to build his brand among the main Sydney agencies. What I don’t like about this is the proposition the idea is based on. Yes, these are tough times and the sentiment about the current climate etc is all correct, but no agency would base its decision on who they keep and who they let go on their ability to play foosball. I know it’s a gag but I’m not convinced it’s funny. But the piece looks good and will definitely get people thinking about Radar.