Customers, or as Paddy Power call them, punters are a notoriously fickle bunch. The barriers to entry are low, and the market constantly incentivises sign ups with bonuses and free bets. As a result, the average bettor will have 4 apps on their phone and they will happily switch from one to another..

Brief: Re- launch Paddy Power’s loyalty programme and acquire new customers.

Challenge: The betting category in the UK is notoriously cluttered with odds based advertising. Furthermore, loyalty programs suffer from very low awareness. We needed to cut through this clutter and make Paddy Power’s Loyalty program famous.

Our idea was “Loyalty is dead. Live for rewards”. We needed to execute in a way that meant something to football fans.

42% of fans share funny football related content and 68% use Whatsapp for footy related chat.

We took a story they knew well, but gave them a new angle, with little jokes that only football fans would understand to add social currency.

We recruited Rhodri Giggs, only known because his famous brother Ryan had an 8 year affair with his wife, as our Brand Ambassador. He provided his perspective on loyalty but never explicitly called out what had happened. We created a shared joke between the viewer and Rhodri that rewarded footy fans for their knowledge, by seeding lots of little jokes in the background that only some fans would know that could be construed as poking fun at Rhodri's brother. This encouraged repeat views and sharing.

Insight:

1. Loyalty between brands and consumers is a fallacy. Customers show loyalty because they get rewarded for such behaviour

2. Football fans enjoy the conversations surrounding the match as much as the game itself

Key message: Loyalty's Dead. Live for Rewards.

Target audience: Leisure bettors, aged 25-40. They love football and everything that goes around it, the gossip, the scandal.

We created a film and other visual assets that supported it. The campaign was pre-launched and given to the press before it went live. When launched fully it was done so during a Manchester United game.

This was complemented with controversial media placements, with a building wrap in Ryan Giggs' home town.

Using Rhodri Giggs, the lesser known brother as our talent in our campaign it allowed Paddy Power to capitalise on Ryan’s brother, and reignite the story in an entertaining, newsworthy way.

But to succeed we needed the story to be back in the public consciousness so we invited the press to interview Rhodri prior to the launch.

In our film Rhodri takes us through his everyday life and how loyal he is with hidden jokes throughout making Rhodri look good but less so his brother. This created social currency for our audience and encourage the viewer to share.

The campaign also contained bespoke short form contextual youtube ads that could be updated with current news stories and moments of disloyalty within football, allowing our talent to intercept real time stories.

To continue to maximise engagement and relevance, targeted, high impact OOH was used in Ryan’s home city of Manchester.

We wanted to create fame for Paddy Powers Rewards Club. We did that and then some.

+400% increase in organic brand search.

179% increase in sign ups.

30% increase in app downloads.

The ad became a national talking point.

It was front page news on national newspapers.

It was the most read article across numerous national websites.

It was a top story on national radio.

It trended 3 ways on Twitter.

4.5 million people had sought the ad out and watched it before it had even gone on TV.

Gambling Insider, an expert within the industry, asked “Is Paddy Powers’ new campaign the future of betting marketing?”

It attracted worldwide attention with articles written all over the world.

The campaign was still grabbing the headlines months later when Rhodri appeared on Good Morning Britain, Britain's largest UK breakfast show.

The campaign help treble the amount of bets in a week.