Rally For Good
ANZ Bank
Issue 38 | March 2016
Agency
R/GA Sydney
Creative Team
Executive Creative Directors, R/GA Gavin Mcleod Hamish Stewart Noel Billig Art Director, R/GA Dane Van Veen Copywriter, R/GA Peter Mountford Senior Technology Director APAC, R/GA Jeff Donios Visual Design Director Michael Armstrong Senior QA Engineer Donna Gonzales
Production Team
Account Director Elizabeth Bourke Managing Director Client Service Rebecca Bezzinna Experience Design Director Lee Gordon Senior Experience Design Tom Moody Senior Producer Jenna Halliday
Other Credits
Octagon Milk Money Senior Digital Marketing Manager ANZ Bank Rohini Fernandez Corporate Brand Sponsorship Manager ANZ Bank Kim McFarlane
Date
January 2015
Background
2015 was the third year that ANZ had sponsored the Australian Open tennis championship. They hadn't yet achieved the level of fan engagement and participation they were looking for.
The objective was to develop a social media activation that complimented the above-the-line campaign by driving awareness and engagement – on a limited budget.
Idea
The strategy was to take a passive sponsorship and make it something tennis fans wanted to be part of through "Rally For Good".
Novak Djokovic hit the first shot of the rally, inviting fans, sports stars and celebrities to submit their shots on social media.
The Rally was incorporated into the official TV broadcast, with the commentators themselves participating. All the submitted shots were stitched together into one amazing rally. For every shot submitted, ANZ donated money to charitable causes across the Asia Pacific region. It was ANZ's most successful social media campaign ever.
A TVC with Novak Djokovic invited people to film themselves playing a tennis shot and post it to social media. The shots were all edited into an endless rally. Even the commentators covering the Australian Open joined in, as did a host of other sporting stars and celebs.
Results
#RallyforGood generated high engagement with over 10,000 shots submitted across two weeks. The campaign received over 50 million social impressions, reaching over 9 million people. There were over 6,400 mentions of #rallyforgood and the #RallyforGood videos were viewed over half a million times.
#RallyforGood was the most successful social media campaign ANZ had ever run, transforming their sponsorship of the Australian Open and putting them right in the middle of the most talked about rally of the tournament.
Our Thoughts
I've said it before and I'll say it again, sponsorship is more than an opportunity for company CEOs to have all their bigwig friends in their hospitality boxes. It's even more than a chance for brands to get their name and logo out there. It's an opportunity to share a passion. In this instance, a passion for tennis. Here's a bank behaving like someone you might actually quite like. Having fun, inviting people to play crazy shots (the guy playing tennis on horseback could be the craziest) and donating money to charitable causes as an added incentive. Through an idea like this, ANZ suddenly seem friendlier than other banks. And one-day, when you're in switching mode, that could be enough to send you into their open arms.