Boots On, Boots Off.
Asahi Super Dry. UK.
Forging meaningful associations and cultural relevance within women’s rugby.
The Brief
Asahi Super Dry, a leading premium lager, is a prominent sponsor of the Women’s Rugby World Cup (WRWC). The team was seeking to amplify this sponsorship, drive awareness and engagement, and most importantly, forge meaningful associations and cultural relevance within women’s rugby.
Specifically the brief highlighted three key objectives:
- Maximise awareness of Asahi Super Dry’s WRWC sponsorship
- Amplify the partnership using credible influencer and athlete partners
- Drive authentic brand associations with the tournament and women’s rugby more generally
The Strategy
The lager market is competitive, so we needed to identify how to seamlessly integrate with WRWC, whilst maintaining Asahi Super Dry’s unique identity. The Goat team used our proprietary technology, IBEX, to analyse previous sporting events, and content surrounding sponsorship. Across the board, we recognised that the best performing content was often not centred around the actual game, but on the personalities and lives of the players “beyond the field”, from pre-tournament anticipation, to community-driven content during.
Goat conceived of “Boots On, Boots Off”; a creative idea based around bridging the gap between a player’s passion on the pitch and a player’s passion off the pitch. In this episodic content series, we would pair two WRWC players with two creators, connecting them through their shared passions and open discussion over an Asahi Super Dry.
The Execution
Two England players, Ellie Kildunne and Holly Aitchison, became the stars of the campaign, each having a unique personal interest/hobby outside of rugby; Ellie’s for photography and Holly for fashion. The Goat team then used IBEX to identify two relevant creators whose content also embodied this and whose audience intersected with those who demonstrate interest in sport; Robyn Gunn and Wumni Bello.
1. “Boots on”
We showcased Ellie and Holly’s professional rugby lives in a high end production for their own and Asahi’s Instagram. From pre-game warm ups, personal ‘good luck’ routines, field practice, and ritual of lacing up boots, we highlighted the discipline and fashion that fuels a top athlete whilst naturally integrating Asahi Super Dry.
2. “Boots Off”
This focused on Ellie and Holly as people beyond the rugby field, sharing their hobbies, passions, and how they switch off from pressure and engage with wider culture. Leveraging Robyn and Wumni who bonded with them over these shared interests, they sparked open and honest discussions about their ‘off the field’ personalities and tying in Asahi as the supporting act.
3. “A Shared Moment”
Our pros and creators came together (over pints of Asahi Super Dry!) to reflect on rugby’s evolution and their shared love of the sport, enhancing our community-led focus.
To support the second half of this campaign, we worked with other creators like Milly Pickles and Elz the Witch to the matches to document the experience as actual fans, from the thrill of the coin toss to post-match reactions and debriefs in the pub. We also had influencers attend ‘The Open Arms Experience“, an Asahi hosted pub event.
The Results
In total, the campaign delivered an impressive 800K impressions and 370K engagements. A key insight from the campaign was that Boots On, Boots Off performed significantly better than the more rugby-focused content showing that bringing sport together with other verticals and broader culture and creators really helps to drive engagement.
Alongside the numerical KPIs, we succeeded in integrating Asahi naturally into Women’s Rugby, generating conversation around the World Cup, and building more brand association between Asahi and the WRWC.
