Tomorrow’s showdown between England and South Africa will be the finale of what has been an unmissable Rugby World Cup. With Canterbury of New Zealand sponsoring seven of the teams, we spoke to Gareth Davies, Creative Agency Director at Pentland Brands, about his teams award-winning ‘Be Part Of It’ creative campaign and what’s next for the other brands within the Pentland Brands portfolio.
What was the inspiration for the Canterbury ‘Be Part of It’ campaign?
“With the world in flux, it’s moments like the Rugby World Cup that connect people in a unique way with the camaraderie and togetherness that rugby brings. With Canterbury at the heart of this, sponsoring more teams than ever before, this inspired us to encourage all to be involved and come up with the strapline ‘BE PART OF IT’.”
What’s special about this campaign from a creative perspective?
“The campaign set out to cater for all rugby fans and consequently represents a wide array of rugby lovers standing shoulder to shoulder with players and officials – emphasising that in this sport, everyone can play their part.
“Within ‘BE PART OF IT’ is a simple idea – players and fans uniting. We’ve previously executed campaigns individually by team, but here we presented an idea to unite the rugby community, taking a more inclusive approach with all teams, players and fans sharing the same stage.
“We are lucky to have a team of internal experts working closely together to ensure the idea and delivery is seamless, from sponsored ambassadors to in-store activations. We also worked closely with Mediacom Manchester to plan an extensive media campaign with responsive imagery that adapts to each city as well as individual games.”
What’s it like creating a campaign of this magnitude?
“The key is spending time with the brand to truly understand the brief and what we need to achieve. From this we present a campaign idea that resonates with consumers and works across regions and channels. Although the creative looks simple its far from that – we manage the filming and photography in different locations, studios and rugby fields! Once the campaign is built, we go into deployment which could be anything from newspaper adverts to social media or digital billboards. In all, the planning and delivery of this campaign would take 9-12 months!”
What other projects do you have in the pipeline?
“We’ve got some really exciting work coming up – having recently developed the creative look for Berghaus’ sell-out Dean Street collection, we’ll be launching a new campaign for the Speedo Fastskin performance swimsuits, as well as seasonal campaigns for Kickers and Berghaus. There’s lots to look forward to – so watch this space.”