AND THE NEW NOMINATED AT 2022 FOOTBALL BUSINESS AWARDS FOR TECNO MOBILE & MANCHESTER CITY CAMPAIGN

AND THE NEW, the new creative-digital agency for brands across sports, entertainment, and gaming, is proud to announce a nomination at the 2022 Football Business Awards in its first year of operation - following the success of the global #AnnounceYourself campaign it devised for TECNO Mobile and Manchester City.

Since launching only last August, the first few months of 2022 have already proven to be hugely successful for AND THE NEW. The agency has continued to grow through multiple new client wins (more on this soon), the appointment of several new hires, a move into new Central London offices and now a nomination at the 2022 Football Business Awards for Best Brand Activation Involving Football.

TECNO Mobile, Official Global Tablet and Handset Partner of Manchester City Football Club, approached AND THE NEW to help them better engage and convert their global target audience, while leveraging their partnership with the Premier League Champions.

TECNO Mobile’s previous brand strategy was to become the “King of Africa” and dominate a growing market that was neglected by so many other competitors. This was achieved in 2020 when TECNO was named Africa’s top smartphone brand with an 18% market share, beating Samsung for the first time. But now it was time to push on.

Having been partnered with City since 2016 and recently going through a brand repositioning programme, the new challenge was clear: how does TECNO Mobile use the partnership to drive its new brand messaging (Stop At Nothing) to the emerging middle classes in key markets worldwide (India, Russia and Colombia), and achieve a more premium brand perception? All while driving traffic to point of sale via a single, integrated creative campaign.

AND THE NEW was tasked to be more premium, more innovative, more engaging and more scalable across territories than ever before. With key brand attributes being 'aspirational', 'persistent', 'passionate' and 'intelligent', we had to develop a creative angle, through the power of football and driven by technology, that was aspirational and almost exclusive for our status-hungry audience.

Our creative base then centered around one question: What are the most exciting moments in the Premier League and global football calendar that allow us to capitalise and are guaranteed to generate conversation? Of course, it was (January) Transfer Window!

CREATING SOMETHING TRULY UNIQUE IN FOOTBALL MARKETING

Introducing #AnnounceYourself...

Delivered over the course of six weeks (running until March 2022), the campaign was underpinned by a web-based augmented reality experience that, without the barrier to entry of having to download an app or complete data capture forms, allowed users to place the EtIhad Stadium in their homes, explore behind the scenes and meet the players - all as if it’s their first day at the club as a new January signing. In addition, audiences could participate in a gamified penalty shootout on the pitch, and use in-experience content as a competition entry mechanism, to win a VIP experience to one of the final games of the 2021/22 season.

Split into two phases, the first period of the campaign followed the narrative in line with the transfer window, giving users the opportunity to 'announce yourself' as City’s newest player and experience the thrill of your signing day.

The second, post-window, doubled down on the penalty shootout competition and driving global entries, which was achieved through a combination of highly-targeted regional paid media campaigns and an engaging organic digital content strategy. Overall, the content strategy that ran concurrently alongside the AR experience saw us produce over 500 individual assets across paid, owned and earned - in multiple different languages.

This level of WebAR experience and detailed gamification had not yet been executed before across Premier League marketing. We pushed the boundaries, just as TECNO Mobile wanted us to!

With over 63 million paid and owned impressions, more than over 258,000 unique experience visits, over 768,500 in-experience minutes and a cross-platform engagement rate of 19%, the campaign surpassed every brand and conversion KPI, and some!

We’re excited for the awards ceremony in May and look forward to marking the occasion with all of the other amazing nominees. 👏