To generate volunteers and drive participation, our strategy was to harness one thing every sport has - fierce fan rivalry, and turned it into something positive by getting supporters to set #Fanshakes.

NAB Fanshake pitted fan against fan. Supporters backed their team against a mate’s team – each pledging to volunteer at a local club if they lost. The stakes could be any voluntary job, like mowing the pitch, refereeing a game or taking junior training sessions.

#Fanshakes could be set directly on social, by tagging a friend and stating a pledge, or via our website. Users simply picked a match, a pledge and tagged their rival. A Fanshake post was automatically created and shared straight to their rival’s wall or Twitter feed.

The losing supporters then had to stay true to their word and volunteer at the local club, helping amateur footy keep going.

Fanshake ran throughout the season. At launch, we also uitlised TV and digital in sport specific placements.

At the same time, we started our social plan. We used our channels to launch the idea and start engagement. During the season, we created dark posts to directly target fans of different clubs when they had additional incentives to participate – when on a winning streak or had a derby coming up.

We also created a social influencer strategy with AFL legends and celebrity fans. To accompany this, we got a number of earned PR pieces from major sport TV Shows. They set their own Fanshakes live on air and posted content on Facebook, helping us reach an even wider audience.

During the finals, we uitilsed our UGC in a wrap-up ensuring the largest audiences of the year set Fanshakes.

The total spent on media and production was A$ 5 million.

Throughout the 7-month campaign, fans across the country were setting Fanshakes and volunteering at local clubs – helping over 1.2 million amateur players. Their content amassed over 19 million social impressions – in a country of just 24 million people.

Fanshake movement generated over A$23.3 million in earned media, with major sports TV show broadcasting over 16 minutes of their own content.

But it didn’t just help the sport, it had a direct impact on the perception of the bank. Positive sentiment for NAB was at an all time high of 80%.

The campaign strengthened brand retention by increasing consideration with customers by 16% and non-customers by 12%.

NAB earned a Share of Voice of 60% out of every major sponsor, more than double the primary sponsor Toyota.

All by doing something positive and entertaining with our sports sponsorship.

Stat Sources:

Hall & Partners Brand Health

NAB Twitter Analytic & Facebook Insights