Sometimes in sports, winning medals in major competitions and leading world rankings is not enough to gain support from brands. This is what happens to the Australian Steelers, the Australian national wheelchair rugby team, for whom finding sponsors has become a real challenge in an increasingly saturated and competitive sporting context.
With the intention of opening a niche and capturing the attention of advertisers, the team has launched an innovative campaign that turns the search for sponsorship into a marketplace. With the help of the creative agency Ogilvy Melbourne, and under the concept “Officially Unsponsored”, the group has put up for sale the different spaces in which the brands could be present.
To this end, it has created “The Sponsorshop”, a website where brands can purchase spaces or formulas through which to support the Australian Steelers. For example, they can get the front or back of the t-shirt, but also establish agreements to become official travel partners, footwear suppliers, insurance or technology partners.
Communication of the initiative is done, precisely, through the equipment. And the Australian Steelers will occasionally replace their usual green and yellow uniform with white t-shirts and sweatshirts with QR codes in those places on the garments where the logo of a sponsoring brand could be included. By scanning it, advertisers can access the store and obtain naming rights or other collaborations.
In addition, the campaign also challenges viewers and fans by inviting them to tag brands that could act as sponsors in the publications made by the team. Users have appealed to sports brands, such as Nike, Adidas or Under Armour, but also others such as Weetabix, Vegemite, Virgin or Mastercard. With this, “Officially Unsponsored” drives a social conversation connecting sports, business and inclusive representation.
“Despite years of continued success at the highest international level, one of the country’s most successful sports teams remains without a sponsor. This campaign seeks to show what modern sponsorship can be: transparent, attractive and based on shared values” said Chris Nay, CEO of Wheelchair Rugby Australia (WRA), according to Little Black Book.
The team assures that they look for brands that share their ambition and values, solid and long-term partners. In this sense, they hope that the campaign will serve to show what the Australian Steelers can bring to advertisers.
“We realized that one of the most successful teams in Australian history did not have a sponsor logo. The problem was not performance, but visibility, and we knew that’s where creativity could help“said Josh Murrell, Creative Director of Ogilvy Melbourne.”We decided to turn the Steelers’ lack of sponsorship into the real idea that would allow them to obtain the commercial support that a team of this caliber can achieve.”.
More info.: Officially Unsponsored
