AFL Grand Final Day is Australia’s biggest sporting event. It’s our Superbowl. And with so many Grand Final sponsors, it’s easy to be overlooked. National Australia Bank (NAB) is a long time AFL sponsor, but the public had no real association between them and the Grand Final. We not only needed to make NAB stand out, but create a vehicle linking the game to NAB’s well-established values as a fair bank. So we did the one thing no other sponsor would and chose not to attend. We instead used what NAB had plenty of - corporate sponsorship tickets and bankers, to champion all the AFL fans that were going to miss the game due to other commitments. We created the ‘NAB Stand-ins’. Individuals, who would literally stand in for them, so they could attend. On game day ‘NAB Stand-ins’ completely dominated game chatter, hijacking all media attention from other sponsors.

The execution of NAB Stand ins, not only made the bank brand completely relevant in the football space, but suddenly made it a much valued and chased commodity in the lead up to Grand Final. Potential and existing customers were in direct dialogue with NAB over why they deserved a NAB Stand In for weeks before the game, and then engaged with the campaign during the AFL Grand Final itself. It displayed NAB’s fair value agenda in a fan related way by handing over corporate seats and bank man-power, to make it possible for fans to attend the big game.

NAB managed to completely hijack online, Big Brother’s launch night of 1.618 million viewers. With over 1 million views the videos, the campaign has become the most viewed online content about home loans ever created in Australia. Also, everyone involved in making this campaign is no longer allowed near Australia’s Big Brother House.