Former captain of Australia Ian Chappell famously said that “anyone who thinks cricket is a gentleman’s game clearly hasn’t played it.” 35 years on sledging still remains a prominent part of the game. It is to cricket what trash talk is to basketball with Australian batsmen David Warner describing it as “entertainment for people that are at home watching”, a telling and controversial statement leading into the First Test.

When you’re 10,000 miles away it’s hard for any Aussie to get behind their team. Sympathising with this, the campaign built upon the sledging insight with an idea that would take the action off the field and into the hands of the viewers.

IMPLEMENTATION

#Pommel invited Australians to sledge the Poms on Facebook and Twitter. Every time they did so a ball would be bowled on their behalf at a Pom piñata in the shape of a cricket cup. Sledges would trend, increase reach, and taunt the English from afar. Best of all, the ball which crushed the cup would win that person $10,000!

TIMELINE

#Pommel was seeded with ‘The Born Sledger’, a video on Henry Blake and his aspiration to write sledges for the Australian Ashes squad. In addition to creating awareness the comedy reminded fans there was entertainment to be had in sledging even if the scoreboard wasn’t to Australia’s favour. Original content was also used to support the campaign which ran July 6-12.

PLACEMENT

#Pommel was promoted via a variety of owned, earned, and paid media including social, web, print, radio, and TV.

SCALE

#Pommel trended #1 Australia-wide on Twitter.

After a dismal start to the Ashes series this campaign used social media to reconnect with an Australian audience who had tuned out. A strong consumer insight offered an authentic way to build brand around this rivalry with ideas which engaged.

#Pommel achieved total reach of 29,721,569 impressions, a result testament to the quality content which supported it. 'The Born Sledger' exceeded targets with 746,929 views which ranked fourth on the YouTube Ads Leaderboard. The video also featured in Google's Guide to Creating Unskippable Video in recognition of its contribution to the wider campaign.

After 71,490 sledges the campaign had smashed its engagement target. Australians rallied around a hashtag so strong Twitter shared it on their blog. It even caught the attention of former England captain Kevin Pietersen and while it was he who had the last laugh it wasn’t with confidence.

When Aussies go down, they go down sledging!