Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 125, December 2019 | Page 35

ADVERTORIAL
Openfield was rewarded for its Vodacom Super Rugby campaign
Marketing Marvels Win Coveted Best Campaign
One of the most sought-after awards on the evening, Campaign of the Year
sponsored by Nielsen Sports, went to Openfield for their outstanding work on
the Vodacom Super Rugby campaign. Openfield also won Best Sponsorship of
an Event or Competition for Vodacom Super Rugby, sponsored by WorldWide
Sports. 115%, and increased ticket sales across the board.
In a country as passionate as South Africa about rugby, our players are often
superheroes to many, both young and old. A campaign which saw the players
of the country’s four biggest Vodacom Super Rugby franchises transformed into
the world’s four biggest Marvel superheroes was not only a ground-breaking
collaboration, and first of its kind sporting campaign in South Africa, but also the
reason why Vodacom and its marketing agency Openfield bagged the coveted win
for Best Campaign for 2019, one of the most prestigious accolades in the South
African sporting industry. Added to this marketing first was Vodacom’s support of CHOC (Childhood Cancer
Foundation South Africa), which allowed their customers to get behind the ‘real
heroes’ of the campaign. This resulted in R1 million being raised, along with R15
million worth of media value, for this charity that does phenomenal work supporting
the wellbeing of children and teenagers diagnosed with cancer or life-threatening
blood disorders, and their families, around South Africa.
Above all else, the fans loved it, as did Vodacom’s customers. Besides bespoke
rugby events being arranged for customers, the first 2000 customers to sign a
Vodacom Red contract were also guaranteed a Marvel rugby jersey.
After an initial production error which saw this award being erroneously handed to
the wrong recipient, Vodacom and Openfield were correctly acknowledged as the
clear winner in this category, which, according to the judging panel, saw entries
of an unprecedented calibre this year. Vodacom and Openfield were also awarded
Best Sponsorship of an Event or Competition for this same campaign. “As the sponsors of Super Rugby, Vodacom’s partnership with Marvel and
SuperSport brought the world’s favourite big-screen superheroes to its customers,
in an epic Vodacom Super Rugby blockbuster,” says Michelle Van Eyden, Executive
Head of Sponsorship at Vodacom. “This injected a new super-charged energy into
rugby and took the game to a whole new audience. Everybody played their role,
from the Marvel superheroes, to the players as heroes on the field, to the fans’
heroic support, and the CHOC children as the greatest heroes of all,” she says.
These two Hollard Sport Industry Awards wins recognise the passion, creativity and
sheer genius of this campaign, which saw the Vodacom Bulls (Captain America),
Cell C Sharks (Black Panther), DHL Stormers (Thor) and the Emirates Lions
(Spiderman) transformed into Marvel superheroes, with specially designed team
jerseys. This not only opened Super Rugby to a much wider audience, but also
saw substantial spikes in merchandise sales, an increase in television exposure of The results speak for themselves: 92,904,468 million opportunities to see this
campaign on social media, an increase in PR value of R22 million, a sold-out
55,000 strong crowd at the pre-season double Superhero Sunday, and an
incredible 296% average increase of entries for Vodacom’s Red Reward events.
Added to this, the four rugby unions involved in this campaign sold on average
60% more Marvel jerseys than the Vodacom Super Rugby jerseys sold in 2018.
More ecstatic winners...
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