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Q

“The collaborative search. That is what stayed in my mind the most. Julie and her team listened very carefully to what we had in mind, because this was not a simple topic, nor a simple message. A good solution was always sought and found, such as the train of thought to integrate the federations and umbrella organizations in the project from the beginning, proved to be the right move. Also the fact that they know the sports sector well helped our campaign enormously.”

Jonathan Deleener

Staff communications officer VAD

Awareness case VAD “Vergok je sportplezier niet”

In this case

Client
VAD
Date
2022

Services

Campaign Strategy
Creative concept
User testing
Photo & videoshoot

Content creation
Website landing page
Social Ad management

VAD is the Flemish expertise center for alcohol, illegal drugs, psychoactive medication, gambling and gaming. It is the partner organization of the Flemish government in the framework of the prevention policy for alcohol and other drug problems. VAD is also the umbrella organization for Flemish organizations working around alcohol and other drugs. The public service is called De Druglijn.

VAD wants to create awareness among two main target groups. On the one hand, it wants club members to reflect on their own behavior and make it clear that more sports knowledge does not lead to more profit. On the other hand, VAD wants club management and sports federations to reflect on gambling within the club scene.

Our challenge?

To come up with a successful creative concept, including launching an awareness campaign around participating in sports betting, where the marketing & communication is flawless, so that VAD can reach more people and thus try to compete against the big pro gambling organizations. 

Our approach

Brainstorm
Focusing on strategy, we started the collaboration with VAD with a brainstorming session. During this workshop, the general approach of this campaign was established: If you bet too much on gambling, the wrong bet will prevent you from enjoying epic sports moments.

The goal was clear, we mainly wanted to create awareness. Among sports clubs, sports federations and club players that highlights the danger associated with gambling.

Creative concept
Based on this meeting, we came up with a creative concept. In the first phase, we focused on an awareness campaign (HERO). In this campaign, we brought gambling and the dangers associated with it out of the taboo. Moreover, we wanted people with a gambling problem -or addiction-to know where to turn, namely to the drug line. This campaign was aimed at all target groups with the goal of creating as much awareness and authority as possible.

We then linked this to a second campaign, a follow-up campaign (HUB). We attached to this campaign a charter to which clubs could subscribe. Through the engagement of the clubs that subscribed to the charter, campaign materials were then shared with them at a later stage to create behavior change. This campaign was clearly focused on conversion, namely getting as many clubs as possible to sign on to the charter.

Marketing & communication
Based on the campaigns to be conducted, we laid out a marketing and communications strategy. We guided VAD in attracting their target groups through the ‘buyer journey’ and defined the campaigns for different target groups.

We also gave the current website a breath of fresh air with a new landing page (with analytics). We also thought about the social content strategy in function of building an extensive community.

The results?

  • ico-yellow A successful creative concept supported by various stakeholders.
  • ico-yellow Well-founded communication & content strategy.
  • ico-yellow Landing page in line with branding of VAD & creative concept campaign.
  • ico-yellow 1 qualitative video, poster and social media post per focus sport (general, soccer, basketball, field hockey, cycling).
  • ico-yellow Communication campaign in collaboration with different federations.
  • ico-yellow 500K reach with an ad budget of €5.000 (main objective: reach) en 93 clubs that signed the charter.

Key take-aways

1

Well-known face as campaign carrier
The only thing that could have given the campaign an extra boost is to use a familiar face to get more PR attention. Of course, this depends on what the budgetary possibilities are.

1

Good to involve partners immediately
The idea of involving partners and federations from the brainstorm has added great value to the final outcome. With partners feeling more involved, there was also a lot of support from their side.

1

A/B Testing remains crucial
Every campaign is different. When you want to generate as much reach as possible, benchmarks and studies show that a social video ad works better than a single image ad. In this campaign, the single image ad turned out to work better. This is why it is important to always perform A/B Testing.

What our customer thought

Q

“The collaborative search. That is what stayed in my mind the most. Julie and her team listened very carefully to what we had in mind, because this was not a simple topic, nor a simple message. A good solution was always sought and found, such as the train of thought to integrate the federations and umbrella organizations in the project from the beginning, proved to be the right move. Also the fact that they know the sports sector well helped our campaign enormously.”

Jonathan Deleener

Staff communications officer VAD

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