Accolade Wines, the UK’s leading wine company, has announced a £1m investment in a new campaign for Hardys, its No 1 wine brand and the official wine of England Cricket. The campaign will include TV sponsorship, a partnership with Sky, print advertising and prize promotions offering the chance to win cricket tickets and cricket merchandise.

The Rules According to Hardys puts the UK’s most trusted wine brand at the heart of family life with a warm and engaging theme about the different rules and quirks around families and the game of cricket.

The Hardys campaign will feature heavily during the cricket season including TV sponsorship of Channel 5 Cricket Highlights, which reaches 10.4m adults, a partnership with SkySports.com and cricket print media advertising. There will be a strong brand presence in England cricket grounds across the UK with perimeter boards, promotional activity and branded bars.

Hardys will be promoted in both the on- and off-trade including gondola ends, summer seasonal aisles and competitions to win cricket tickets and related branded products to drive awareness and purchase at point of purchase.

David White, Marketing Director for Accolade Wines, says: “We have consistently invested in Hardys sponsorship of the England cricket team over the last few years and now established our credentials as a long term supporter of English cricket. We are confident that this new campaign, The Rules According to Hardys, will connect with our consumers by raising a smile at the quirky ways British families interpret the rules and enjoy time together, especially when playing cricket.”

The campaign will extend to Hardys social channels through a partnership with the England and Wales Cricket Board to create a series of posts revealing the quirky personal family rules of those that grew up around the game.

The Hardys brand, with retail sales worth in excess of £275m a year, will also front a search to celebrate the unsung heroes of local grassroots crickets, and will be revealing its support for some unusual cricket traditions during the season.

Accolade Wines, which owns the Hardys brand, is a major global wine business based in Australia. It began as Thomas Hardy and Sons, founded in 1853, and now has operations in North America, the United Kingdom, Ireland, mainland Europe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Asia. At the beginning of April 2018, US private equity firm The Carlyle Group bought Accolade for Aus $1bn. The sellers were Australian private equity firm Champ, which owned 80% of the business, and US alcohol group Constellation, which owned the remaining 20%.

Accolade’s Echo Falls brand recently signed up as the drinks partner of what is likely to be the summer’s hottest TV show, Love Island 2018, on ITV2, and will be offering the chance to win tickets to the live Love Island final.

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Greene King, the official beer sponsor of English cricket and grass-roots rugby, is hosting a major sports-themed nationwide on-pack promotion, created and implemented by Farnham-based marketing agency Ten Feet Tall.

Appearing on 250,000 bottles of IPA, IPA Gold and IPA Reserve, the promotion is running off-trade and is supported by a TV spend in excess of £250,000.

Each bottle wrap showcases one of 10 ‘Great Sporting Moments’, from England’s 1966 World Cup victory to Saracens’ European Double in 2017, and the series of collectable labels features not only football, cricket and rugby but also golf, motorsport and cycling.

Customers are driven online to read not only the full story behind the sporting triumph, but also to discover whether the unique code on their label means they have won a summer-themed gift from the £50,000 prize fund.

Ten Feet Tall MD Ed Hughes says: “Our marketing expertise in the sports and sponsorship arena combined with Greene King’s legendary support of both professional and grass-roots sport make for a winning combination.”

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UK consumers are being offered the chance to win a trip for four adults to watch a top Australian domestic cricket match at the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground, courtesy of Foster’s beer, the Official Lager of the England and Wales Cricket Board.

The trip includes flights, the match tickets and accommodation for seven nights in a 4* hotel.

There are also hundreds of instant win prizes including pairs of England NatWest International T20 or Royal London One-Day International match tickets, England Cricket Adidas polo shirts, cricket kits (including cricket bat, wickets and ball) and Foster’s branded sports shirts.

To enter, consumers outside Northern Ireland have to buy a promotional multipack of Foster’s cans, and then input a seventeen digit alphanumeric code found on the cardboard outer on the relevant page on the Foster’s website. There is a No Purchase Necessary entry route for Northern Irish consumers. People can enter once a day and 20 times maximum over the course of the promotion, but have to have a new code every time they enter. The competition started at the end of August and runs until December 31^st 2016.

The prizes must be taken in December 2017 or January 2018 – the exact times will depend on when relevant fixtures are being played in Melbourne.

Craig Clarkson, Off-Trade and Category Director at Heineken, says: “The promotion offers shoppers the chance to win fantastic prizes to experience the Australian spirit and can-do attitude of the brand. Building on the visibility that Foster’s has achieved throughout the summer, these packs will drive sales of one of the UK’s best-selling lagers.”

Heineken employs around 2,000 people in the UK and is Britain’s leading cider and beer business. It owns around 1,250 pubs through its Star Pubs & Bars business and its brand portfolio includes Foster’s, Heineken, Strongbow, Desperados, Kronenbourg1664, John Smith’s and Bulmers, plus a full range of niche and speciality brands.

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Kia, principal sponsor of Surrey County Cricket Club, has launched a 1970s inspired instructional video featuring Surrey star Jade Dernbach to promote the club’s Kia Catch competition.

The Kia Catch competition offers any fan who catches a six in play during a Twenty20 match a cheque for £1,000. The video is designed to teach fans how to catch the ball safely, while providing them with plenty of stereotypical cricket-related laughs along the way.

The video was created for the car company by global marketing and communications agency INNOCEAN UK, which was briefed to find an engaging and humorous way to promote the competition which would resonate with cricket fans. Kia also wanted a ‘timeless’ piece of content which could be used across multiple platforms.

Kia has sponsored the Surrey County Cricket Club, who play at The Kia Oval, since 2011. During this time Kia has made significant efforts to contribute to improving the match day experience for fans visiting the ground, most notably instigating the Kia Catch in 2012.

Since its inception, 23 people have taken home the £1000 prize, with a record nine people catching a six in 2015. Kia wants to make sure everyone knows about the competition prior to visiting The Kia Oval in 2016, and is looking to extend the competition into other venues to support the Kia Women’s Super League in its inaugural year, too.

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Foster’s lager is to be the Official Lager of England Cricket, having signed a two-year deal with the England and Wales Cricket Board. The partnership sees Foster’s return to sports sponsorship for the first time in a decade.

The major new sponsorship deal will be supported by a nationwide campaign appealing to cricket fans across the country throughout the summer. Foster’s will be developing mechanics to drive rate of sale and footfall for the trade, giving consumers the chance to win a range of cricket-related prizes including match tickets.

The two year deal includes all international T20 matches, One Day Internationals and International Test Matches. These include this summer’s home international series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan and next season’s tours by West Indies and South Africa.

The ECB logo will be included on all Foster’s packaging later in the year, and the beer will be activated in trade from July 11^th to the end of August.

In addition, there will be bespoke activations happening at selected cricket grounds throughout June, July and August. Further details will be revealed later this year.

David Forde, Managing Director of Heineken, which owns Foster’s, says: “We’re thrilled to team up with England Cricket. It’s been a decade since we last sponsored the sport in the UK and what a time to start again! England are playing superbly and the popularity of all forms of international cricket is soaring. Cricket has one of the widest fan bases of any sport and Foster’s is one of the best-selling lagers in the country – it’s a winning combination for our customers, consumers and us.”

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