SAVE OUR SHIRT
Gambling brands have been taking over football for years. In 2018, 17 of the 24 teams in the Championship had one slapped across their shirt. So we created a campaign that saw Paddy Power help tackle this problem, instead of becoming part of it.
#SaveOurShirt.
The campaign saw Paddy Power sponsor football teams without putting their logo on their shirts.
It all started with a stunt that took football by storm and stretched across just about every other channel imaginable, including social, experiential, OOH, press and TV.
Here’s the full case study film with some of the crazy numbers the campaign generated;
And here’s a breakdown of the whole campaign in more detail…
We started by sponsoring Huddersfield Town, but had to figure out how we could make sure people knew we sponsored them without having our logo on their shirt.
So our idea was to attempt one of Paddy Powers most audacious stunts and create a hoax kit launch for the club, with the Paddy Power logo emblazoned across the front of the shirt.
We wanted football to react. Oh, how it reacted…
The kit launch was already getting unprecedented levels of attention, but some fans smelled a rat and suggested a hoax. Luckily we’d already convinced Huddersfield to actually play in the kit in their opening game of the season…
Cue pandemonium…
As the internet exploded, Paddy Power were accused of causing the ‘Death of Football’ and Huddersfield of ‘selling their souls’. Result.
Then, just as the debate reached fever pitch, we revealed all with an online film…
… and some Press and OOH.
More teams joined the Save Our Shirt movement, seeing Paddy Power unsponsor them, too.
The reveal went down a storm, and while Huddersfield fans breathed a sigh of relief, a larger debate around the place for sponsorship, (especially that of gambling companies) in football was prompted.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jul/25/kit-sponsors-football-betting-logos
As more clubs asked Paddy Power to ‘unsponsor’ them, we released a TV ad that went live during the opening game of the Football League season.
…and now the hoax Huddersfield shirt we created hangs in the National Football Museum in Manchester.
