See Green
Irish Rugby Football Union
Issue 53 | December 2019
Agency
ROTHCO, Accenture Interactive
Creative Team
Creative Director Adam Crane Copywriter Eoin Conlon Director Jake Viramontez
Production Team
Assistant Producer Hannah Gallagher Technical Director Daire Lennon Developer Niall Eccles UX Design Stephen Flynn Digital Project Manager Orla Daly Social Lead: Colm Cusack
Other Credits
Director of Marketing Jill Byrne Senior Account Manager Andy Williams Executive Producer Al Byrnes Strategist Bronagh O’Donovan Client Chairman Commercial & Marketing Committee Damian Devaney Commercial & Marketing Director Padraig Power Communications Director Stephen McNamara Digital Marketing Manager Barry Cunningham Marketing & Sponsorship Manager Jessica Long
Date
September 2019
Background
Every four years, the Irish Rugby Football Union sees a surge of support for the national team, not only in the country but around the world.
Played in September 2019, The Rugby World Cup was a competition that both die-hard and fair-weather fans got behind. Though being played 13,000 kilometres away in Japan, the IRFU wanted to make sure every supporter could follow Ireland in the competition.
Idea
Standing #shouldertoshoulder with all Irish rugby fans and players, the IRFU wanted to help every fan support Ireland at the World Cup. One specific audience in need of help were fans who were colour-blind. Over 250,000 Irish men and women had difficulty distinguishing between red and green.
The campaign told the story of Bobby Blakeney, an avid rugby supporter for 74 years, who often mistook Irish players for those of the opposing team.
The ‘See Green’ Chrome extension corrected this. Used on any desktop for all the games streamed legally, the tool let users apply a colour overlay to the video, adjusting the hue, saturation, and contrast. Because colour blindness varies from person to person, the tool needed to be simple to use but capable of delivering a personalised experience. Thus, a slider-based solution, calibrated by using the IRFU logo, easily altered the contrast of the shades on screen.
Bobby’s story drove traffic to the IRFU website, where the plug-in was free to download. It could be tested by watching memorable moments in Irish rugby history with the ‘See Green’ filter.
Results
The See Green Chrome extension was downloaded on every continent around the world.
There were over 250,000 organic views of the video.
The campaign reached 5.5 million people for €0 media spend.
Our Thoughts
Directory has long believed that brands communicate as much, if not more, in what they do than in what they say. So the IRFU could easily have run ads saying to the fans ‘Thanks for helping us get here’ or some such Rugby World Cup nonsense but with this idea they actually demonstrate their commitment.
It has long puzzled me that for such a haven for creative people Ireland has languished in creativity league tables. Maybe Rothco is leading a metamorphosis with work like this (and ‘JFK Unsilenced for The Times) that harnesses tech in consumer-friendly ways.