Features
‘Sport Lives Here’: Kayo reinforces its ‘unrivalled’ status with new brand platform
Sports streaming is heating up but Kayo is not concerned. Leading into the winter sports season the service has launched new brand platform 'Sport Lives Here' with a star-studded campaign. Kayo marketing director Kim McConnie chats to Mumbrella's Zoe Wilkinson about reinforcing the 'unrivalled' access to 50 sports, and crossing borders to bring sport stars together.
Sports stars living together in a picture of domestic bliss is at the forefront of Kayo’s 2021 campaign, but at its heart is the message ‘Sport Lives Here’.
After a year that has closed stadiums, moved leagues and teams into new states, and prevented fans from gathering together to enjoy sport at the local pub, ‘Sport Lives Here’ means more than just the wide array of sport that is available on the Foxtel-owned streaming service – it reflects how sport became almost purely available in the home last year, a stark contrast to the previous campaign, launched before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, which highlighted fans’ ability to stream sports wherever they go.
“It’s really just a euphemism for where Kayo lives,” says marketing director Kim McConnie.
“When you think about it Kayo is only two years old. We’ve been on such a rapid journey of growth that last year it was about reinforcing some of the key fundamentals of Kayo – that you can watch it anywhere… our consumers and sports fans get that now.
“What we really wanted to reinforce is something that people are discovering more and more, which is the discovery and access that Kayo provides.”
The concept behind the four TVCs is what it would be like with Australia’s biggest sports stars living together in a home, like they live together on Kayo.
“We wanted to show people what life would look like if all the world’s best athletes from over 50 sports, literally did live together as they do on the Kayo platform. The consequences of how they manage their ‘home’ has proven to be a really engaging way to bring a broader audience in beyond the sport nuts.” said Special Group Australia’s partner and chief creative officer, Tom Martin.
In a sit-com style view into the Australia’s most competitive share house, Richmond Tigers star Dustin Martin and the Melbourne Storm’s Cameron Munster cook up a storm in the kitchen, backed by Anthony Hudson’s enthusiastic commentary. Motor racing driver Cameron Waters completes a speedy grocery run for the unconventional family.
It is a star-studded cast, selected based on Kayo staff’s favourites, the brand’s ambassadors and to reflect the spread of sporting codes available on the platform, which is something McConnie keeps coming back to. There are more that 50 sports on Kayo, and the brand wants consumers to know it.
Kayo’s Kim McConnie
However the streaming service is not without challenge. Not only is the campaign timed for the kick off of the winter sports season, it comes at a crucial time for the sports streaming market. Stan Sport launches on 19 February, on the same day as the first game of the Super Rugby, the rights for which were obtained in a $100 million deal in cash and contra brokered by Rugby Australia and Nine.
Optus Sport is still the home of soccer, and Amazon Prime has a toe in the door thanks to a new deal with Swimming Australia.
Kayo, however, is unconcerned by new rivals on the horizon. In September 2020, Kayo reported a record high of over 600,000 subscribers and its service will now be integrated into NRL and AFL Live apps following the withdrawal of Telstra from streaming.
“We don’t really compete in the same space,” McConnie says.
“When you think about what we’ve talked about from a proposition point of view, we’re very much focused on the unrivalled proposition and the breadth and depth that Kayo has. So if you look at things like Stan Sport and Optus Sport, they very much operate in this specialist niche territory which enables us to make sure that we compete in a very different space.”
Helping Kayo take the lead in this space is Special Group. The partnership, which is bordering on the one-year mark, is helping Kayo navigate the ‘challenges’ it is now facing.
“We are two years old, we are evolving. So the challenges that we had at launch obviously are very different to the challenges that now we’re heading into, into what is a new era for us because we needed to go after more than just the sports fanatics,” McConnie explains.
“We are about growth and continuing to drive that accelerated growth and we need to go after a broader sports fan base. And once we worked with Special and worked this through it was very much their matter of how do we bring this to life in a way which really talks to not only the minds but the hearts of sports fans.”
COVID intensified the creative process leading into the campaign’s inception and complicated the production process, which took place in mid-January. With the variety of codes and famous faces Kayo has access to for its marketing as a result, comes the challenge of pulling off a campaign that imagines sports people from a number of codes and locations in Australia living together in one place.
In the wake of the Christmas COVID-19 outbreak in Sydney, Sydney Roosters player Luke Keary had to be shot separately and cut into the final films which were predominantly filmed in Melbourne. There was also a famous international face Kayo had its eye on that couldn’t make it in due to international border restrictions.
Yet thanks to sheer luck, McConnie was able to be on the ground for filming.
“I actually was there, but only because I was holidaying on the Gold Coast at the time that all the borders shut down. So I spent five weeks up there because I couldn’t come back to Sydney because I was on the Northern Beaches,” she recounts.
“So for me from a personal point of view, in order to make sure I could be at this shoot I set up shop for five weeks on the Gold Coast so I could go from the Gold Coast to Melbourne.”
Every campaign, she says, is filled with “many little stories like that” as agencies and marketers now have to navigate through restrictions and last minute complications to get their ads off the ground.
Kayo’s ‘Sport Lives Here’ campaign will appear on TV, out-of-home, press, radio, social and digital.
Credits
Client: Kayo Sports
Kim McConnie: Marketing Director
Stephanie Lukin: Senior Marketing Manager
Georgia Cosier: Brand Marketing Specialist
Creative Agency: Special Group Australia
Lindsey Evans: Founding Partner & CEO
Cade Heyde: Founding Partner & Managing Director
Tom Martin: Partner & CCO
Julian Schreiber: Partner & CCO
Nils Eberhardt: Creative Director
Jack Nunn: Creative Director
Simon Gibson: Senior Copywriter
Adam Shear: Design Director
Liam Kenny: Designer
Jen Bailey: Artwork
Nick Lilley: Head of Production
Meredyth Judd: Executive Producer, Film
Emily Willis: Integrated Producer
Emily Stewart: Casting Director
Jake Stopper: Business Director
Meri Stewart: Business Manager
Media Buying: Mindshare
Linda Tyson: Client Lead
Joel brady: Group Strategy Director
Liz Penton: Connection Planning Manager
Guillaume David: Group Trading Director
Production: MOFA
Director: Nick Kelly
Executive Producer: Llew Griffiths
Producer: Allison Lockwood
Editorial: ARC Edit
Post-Production: Alt.vfx
Sound: Rumble Studios
