This season, away fans from Premier League clubs saw their tickets capped at £20 in a pioneering move by Virgin Media and the Football Supporters’ Federation
Challenge:
markettiers were briefed to organise a broadcast day to promote the great initiative by Virgin Media as part of the ‘Twenty’s Plenty’ campaign. Virgin Media partnered with the FSF and were reimbursing the costs of supporters’ tickets above £20 for a single away fixture at all top-tier clubs with the majority of matches held between 15 and 23 April.
Fronting the campaign was former England Forward, Dion Dublin, CEO Football Supporters Federation, Kevin Miles and Everton Fan, Dave Kelly.
Solution:
The campaign had a great influx of interest from the media and to ensure that listeners were aware of this pioneering move, the broadcast session was organised in advance and booked to take place on 6th April. Great guests joined the project to ensure that the key messages were related throughout every interview. Dion Dublin was enlisted to take part in most interviews during the day – he remained relaxed and consistent throughout. Kevin Miles was also a great guest who ensured that a more in depth view of the initiative was explained thoroughly. And, finally, Dave Kelly was very good at giving his personal views on the importance of looking after the fans, as an Everton supporter himself.
markettiers secured top tier stations including the likes of; talkSPORT (3,007,000), BFBS (1,000,000), BBC West Midlands (220,000) and BBC Coventry & Warwickshire (77,000) on to the schedule. An audio feature was also recorded and placed in 30 stations around the UK.
Results:
Overall, markettiers are happy to celebrate that 44 opportunities were secured, this includes both the interviews on the day of the session and the placement of the audio feature recording which was distributed around the UK. This meant that the total AVE is in excess of £40k which equaled to a return of investment of x8.9.