There is a school of thought that says every brief is a challenge, but some are more of a challenge than others. Energade planned to leverage their long standing relationship with Cricket South Africa as the official sports drinks supplier of to the Proteas cricket team. The challenge they gave to Magnetic Communications and Provantage was to leverage the brand association and ensure that consumers who attend the home cricket series against Australia have an affinity to Energade.

And the need to respect the other sponsors’ branding rights and the different requirements of each independent stadium and cricket union to the mix and ensure that the vendors in each stadium (who sell competitive products) and the title sponsors are all happy with the campaign and (of course) do it all on a very short deadline and a restricted budget.

The concept had to therefore be simple, effective, flexible and most importantly, fun. Whilst respecting the contractual and logistical hurdles that limited the amount of branding and promotional staff within the stadium. The solution was to add some Energade flare to the cricket with an inflatable mist tunnel in the form of Energade bottles and a stand-alone inflatable Energade bottle allowing the creation of a brand presence and a refreshing mist experience that could be moved and tailored to each location. Capitalising on the late summer heat promoters sampled a limited amount of Energade ready-to-drink and gave consumers their first taste of the newly launched Energade Jellies, but the biggest brand coup was the branding of thousands of consumers with Energade tattoos. The tattoos became part of the fun of being at the cricket and many consumers came back again and again over the five day matches to get their tattoos. True Protea supporters who brandished the Energade tattoos also won product and promotional items for their spirit and loyalty.
The final piece of the puzzle was to add PR and media leverage to reach cricket fans who had not yet arrived at the stadium and ensure the association between Energade and the Proteas was developed beyond the stadium experience.  A media partnership was created with Independent Newspapers’ The Star, Daily News and Cape Argus, where a competition was run to give 80 readers four tickets to share with their friends and enjoy the cricket matches – something that became sought after items as the games became exciting and tickets sold out. This was followed with post match coverage of the fans and the cricketers enjoying the game.

“This season has been one of the best our cricket team has had in a long time” says Kandice Vardhan, Energade brand manager “and we were pleased to see so many South Africans enjoying it with Energade. This was an unusual campaign with many limitations but Magnetic and Provantage had the creativity and the attitude to make it happen.”