Harness racing has been a beloved Swedish folk sport for decades, but in recent years, the popularity has decreased dramatically - mainly because of the lacking influx from younger generations. The situation poses a serious threat for ATG, Sweden’s largest betting company with its core business rooted in horse sports.

The brief was to come up with a creative PR-campaign reaching outside ATG’s existing and aging community, with an initiative stretching outside their traditional media coverage.

The objective was to improve the brand recognition among 18-30 year olds, and strengthen ATG’s brand perception with at least plus two percent in the parameters presented below. A brand study was conducted on the target audience before the event which indicated the following reference points:

- Brand recognition of ATG (23 out of 100)

- ATG generates positive feelings (12/100)

- ATG is exciting (11/100)

- ATG is fun and entertaining (13/100)

Lately, the e-sport movement has radically changed the landscape of entertainment - with strong communities and ways of interaction. The idea was to apply the successful e-sport recipe to infuse new life and innovation to the traditional harness racing. What if we could capture the enthusiasm of existing harness racing fans and pass it on with the interactive elements of e-sport?

The plan was to let the attending audience become sports commentators in a completely new type of broadcast by using Twitch - the largest live streaming platform and the world’s premier e-sport hub.

The best window of opportunity to engage future customers was undoubtedly Elitloppet in May 2019. The event is one of the world’s most prestigious harness races, with over 60.000 people attending the Solvalla arena with a carnival like atmosphere.

A bearing insight was that participatory activities is a key trigger for the target audience, and that previous PR-related attempts had failed. Therefore, we needed new points of contact through traditional media and social channels. Meanwhile, Sweden is considered a leading e-sport nation, with 400.000 consumers who daily follow high end teams and profiles.

Creating a social Twitch platform would not do the magic on its own and therefore we collaborated with influencers from the e-sport and TV-industry to create awareness of the campaign. Together with the crowd of the event, they would become the first ever to commentate harness racing live on Twitch; a window for the existing crowd to pass on their engagement to the next online generation.

“1337” is known in gaming lingo as “elite”, and the campaign name 1337-loppet (i.e.1337-race) became a lingual twist symbolizing the movement of the event to a new era.

Elitloppet has been broadcasted the same way in decades through national TV, and also gained the same type of media attention every year. Our conviction was that the innovative format of 1337-loppet would be perceived differently and attract new types of media.

Our strategy was to approach media and use our social media channels before, during, and after the event. By using different angles and narratives, we reached out to new media outside the harness racing community, including gaming and tech media, as well as national and local media.

In addition to the PR driven the following channels were utilized

- Twitch became the main hub for the broadcast

- ATG’s website mirrored the Twitch-broadcast, thus reaching existing customers

- Twitch highlights were published on Instagram and Facebook, and personal links was sent to all participants commenting on the races

- Influencer activation through their social channels

Media Outputs:

- The live broadcast was viewed by over 58.000 people, mainly in the target group which would not have been in contact with Elitloppet otherwise.

- In Facebook we had an organic reach of over 250.000 views and 2000 comments from a cheerful crowd.

- 25 articles were published in news media; among them the leading magazines Aftonbladet and Expressen. In addition, Aftonbladet streamed 1337-loppet directly from our Twitch, through their web television broadcasts.

- In total, the campaign had a reach of over two million people, which is significant given Sweden’s total population of 10 million.

Target Audience Outcomes:

A brand study was conducted on the target audience before and after the event. 1337-loppet contributed to change the following perception among 18-30 year olds:

- Brand recognition of ATG +15% (23 to 38)

- ATG generates positive feelings +8% (12 to 20)

- ATG is exciting +12% (11 to 23)

- ATG is fun and entertaining +9% (13 to 22)

Business Outcomes:

In total ATG reported a record turnover with a total of 74.6 million SEK on their betting service V75 and reached a total turnover of over 380 million SEK.