In the run up to the delayed EURO 2020 football tournament, Toshiba wanted to promote the brand’s range of smart TVs to an audience of early tech adopters and football fans.
A key consideration was brand activity around the EUROs. With a rival TV manufacturer as a headline sponsor, we were limited in how closely we could associate with the EUROs specifically – meaning we needed an ownable creative for Toshiba and football.
We also needed a creative that appealed to both football fans and tech adopters, bringing the worlds of tech and football together.
We needed a creative that brought together the football viewing experience with the technology in Toshiba TVs. With Alexa Built-In as a key USP for the tech audience, we decided to make it the focus of our campaign in the run up to EURO 2020.
Using our insights tool, we knew football fans love to watch the games in group settings; they over indexed on watching with friends and family or in social settings such as the pub. We also realised a key component to this was the football banter where fans often debate and argue football facts – whether its England’s record against Croatia in past tournaments, who’s Wales’ best player, or what’s Scotland’s best ever tournament showing. These debates would often be in front of the TV before or during a game.
To help settle these arguments before they start, and hero the Alexa Built-In feature, we partnered with football commentator Clive Tyldesley – a man knows for his football facts and knowledge.
Clive recorded answers to 25 commonly asked football questions, so fans can get answers to the big questions while they watch the live matches. This literally allows fans to ask their TV for football facts, such as “who is England’s best ever player?” and get Clive’s answers through Alexa while they’re watching live TV and football. Clive’s updates were also made available on all Alexa-enabled devices, to ensure the story had mass-appeal.
Over 30 pieces of coverage, including 8 national pieces, with two print pieces in The Sun, Daily Express, a full page and front page with The Scotsman print, as well as features in Edinburgh News, Wales Online, North Wales Live and more up and down the country. Alongside this we saw coverage in leading tech titles including TechRadar and Pocket-Lint.
On social, a total of nine posts across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter saw over 131,000 engagements over a two-week period, with 3,800 clicks to the Toshiba website product page.
The campaign was highly successful and assisted in a huge uplift in sales in terms of volume, moving up Toshiba to the no.3 TV brand in the UK.
