We’ve been burning lots of the midnight oil to get here, but last Saturday saw the start of the teaser phase of our new integrated campaign for Betfair: The Front Room. You may well have seen a series of oddly intriguing 10sec TV spots in and around the weekend’s Premiership matches on Sky Sports…
The Front Room is a living, breathing microcosm of the Betfair betting exchange – a platform that allows people to bet against each other rather than against a bookmaker (as they do with the likes of William Hill or Ladbrokes).
To bring this to life, we’ve cast 5 passionate football fans who we’re going to film bantering, arguing and debating with each other about the week’s football events and issues, and ultimately agreeing to disagree by shaking on a bet. It’s all totally unscripted and we’ll be producing new content every week throughout the football season – more than 20 TV ads in total and a mountain of online content which will all be housed online at www.betfairfootball.com. To dial up the engagement online, the fans will also be tweeting, blogging and updating on all the major social networking platforms. And you’ll even be able to bet against them and their predictions for the upcoming games.
We’ve built the set down at Betfair’s offices in Hammersmith, where we’ll be shooting almost every week, editing the very next day and getting the ads on air by that weekend, in time for that big games. Everyone involved has approached this whole concept with real journalistic intent (check us out…!) to ensure the content is as topical, relevant and entertaining as possible – a week can be a lifetime in football!
It’s a massive undertaking and is only going to get busier through the season as the campaign takes off both on and offline, so a huge pat on the back goes to the team here at Albion and our very supportive client team at Betfair, and long may it continue.
The campaign proper launches just prior to the Manchester United vs. Liverpool game this Sunday 25th October. But in the meantime, you can access all the teasers on the Betfair YouTube channel.
You’ll notice that the 5th fan is still to be confirmed (hence the blacked out face with the big white question mark on the website!). One of our chosen fans dropped out at 5.30pm last Friday afternoon, prompting a last-minute scrabble to get his TV ads pulled and all his online content removed – just one of the things we’re all having to adjust to quickly given the live nature of this project. And no, it’s not Tim Lovejoy, David Baddiel or Frank Skinner… answers on a postcard.
