A million views in five days! SA Rugby asked us to create a message from the Springboks to the 2016 SA Olympic Team, wishing them good luck and showing them that the Boks are 100% behind them. In less than a week, the video notched up seven figures’ worth of combined views, across several social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube!
“This is still our best-performing piece of digital content ever,” reflects SA Rugby Senior Brand and Marketing Manager, Marlon Kruger, more than a year later. “Gord and the guys really knocked this one out the park. Again!“
In fact, the video has significantly more views than the extended-cut brand TVC (made by agency, T&W) which, at the time of writing, was pinned to the top of their Facebook page’s video section.
Of course, we faced more than a small number of obstacles. First of all, budget. Without going into too much detail, this was a spur-of-the-moment idea from the very cool folk at SA Rugby; not assigned to any pre-allocated budget. So, we had to employ the good ol’ South African ethos of “make a plan”. Then, there was the almost impossible five-day turnaround (from conception to posted), and the fact that we only had a total of two hours’ filming with the Boks at their training camp, with access to two players at a time, for 15-minute intervals.
In the end, everyone embraced the spirit of the project and had genuine fun, which shines through in the finished product. The public clearly enjoyed (and shared the heck out of) it. But, more importantly the message reached the Olympic Team who, we’re told, were sincerely entertained, moved and inspired.
It’s always a real pleasure to work with SA Rugby, especially when the whole country gets behind the message like they did here!
Concept: Gord Laws, Marlon Kruger, Zin Tashe
Creative Direction: Gord Laws
Videography: Jacob Claassens, John Parr and Ryan Jonathan
Visual FX and Animation: Ryan Jonathan
Editing: Jacob Claassens
Producer: John Parr
Art Direction: Allan Slow
Client Service: Rugaya Jacobs
Agency: HoneyKome
