Don’t Believe In Never

Background

The Australian Football League (AFL) was Australia’s national game but was most popular in the state of Victoria.

Despite coming off its strongest season ever, the AFL wanted to build passion and involvement in its heartlands but engage and grow support for the game in New South Wales and Queensland.

Idea

The strategy was to step outside the conventions of sport and place Aussie Rules football into a wider cultural context, championing an ideology that went beyond sport. In a world in which uncertainty and pessimism was prevalent, the AFL wanted people to believe in what might be possible.

Indeed, the sport itself demonstrated almost unimaginable possibilities. A team could go from ranking 13th one year to be champions the next. Another team was 30 points down in the final quarter but still found a way to win. And girls dreaming of playing at an elite level were now able to realise that ambition through the AFLW. To demonstrate that anything is possible, three amazing stories of three real people who have achieved success against all the odds.

Aliir Aliir came from a refugee camp in Kenya to play professionally for the Sydney Swans.

Dema is a Moslem girl who defied her father to play for the Bankstown Bull Sharks, turning him into an Aussie Rules fan along the way.

The Richmond Tigers went from disappointing their supporters year after year to giving them a championship.

These stories were also cut down to run across TV, social and digital assets.

Large format outdoor and street furniture was used to tease the campaign launch. Black and white images of the campaign’s stars with the word “NEVER” written across them ran in all National cities for a week. Then the line “Don’t Believe in Never” was revealed coinciding with the launch of the content.

Results

After three rounds of the 2018 series, total attendance at games has hit 1.1 million, which is 9% higher than the previous rounds 1-3 record.

Channel 7 commissioned a 30-minute documentary based on the Richmond Tigers story.

The Richmond Tigers opening game had the highest-ever recorded crowd attendance for a first-round game.

Since launch, 2.75 million organic video views and 19 million impressions have been racked up across AFL’s social channels. One third of these were from people new to AFL, and a high proportion of comments came from women and from those with multicultural backgrounds, with common themes of inclusion, authenticity and inspiration.

Positive campaign sentiment was greater than 99%, the highest ever for an AFL campaign, and especially impressive considering how critical sports fans can be.

Our Thoughts

Something like 800 million people have installed adblockers on their mobiles and other devices. So how do you get around the problem? By creating content people choose to watch.

But don’t be fooled into thinking any old mug can create branded content. It’s extremely difficult to get results like these without huge professionalism and attention to detail.

Starting with the strategy. Shifting Aussie Rules into the whole area of personal development and cultural change is a masterstroke, demanding a completely different approach to Canal+ (on pages 28-29).

Then the films have been very well written, beautifully shot and brilliantly edited to keep you with them all the way to the finish. Go online and watch them, do. My favourite bit is Rema’s Dad confessing how his little girl’s involvement with the sport has inspired him.