GOALS Soccer Centres has appointed ATOM Connect as its agency partner to promote and manage all brand experience opportunities within its 46 football centres around the UK.

ATOM Connect is a newly-formed division of agency ATOM Marketing which focuses on brand and entertainment partnerships, experiential and events.

GOALS is the world’s largest and most successful operator of dedicated small-sided football centres, with 46 FA accredited clubs across the UK and three more in Los Angeles, California.

The GOALS centres offer brands and experiential agencies the opportunity to engage and connect with a highly targeted male audience. Over 140,000 men aged 18-44 enjoy playing at GOALS centres each week and opportunities exist for brand exposure, sampling or experiential events in the spaces available at the centres.

John-Paul Murphy, Head of Marketing at GOALS, says: “Having worked with ATOM before and understanding well their expertise and service, I had no hesitation in appointing ATOM Connect to engage potential brand experience partners on our behalf and manage this activity. We have a fantastically loyal and hard-to-reach audience that offers great opportunities for all sorts of category brands and I look forward to ATOM Connect delivering for both Goals and our partners.”

Andy Duff, founder and MD of ATOM, observes: “GOALS is a unique opportunity for brands to engage with the ‘hard to reach’ male audience by interacting with a large number of a highly targeted audience. Over 97% of players are men aged 18-44. The appointment is a fantastic founding client for this new division, ATOM Connect and it’s great to announce this while the nation is gripped with global football fever and the new league season approaches from August/September.”

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Kellogg’s has teamed up with ITV2’s Love Island for an on-pack promotion on leading brands, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut, with a trip for two to Mallorca to see the Love Island final as the grand prize.

The partnership encourages consumers to buy a pack in store, take a selfie of themselves holding up the back of the cereal box and then share it on the Kellogg’s Facebook page, Instagram or Twitter with the hashtag #KelloggsCerealDater.

UK and Irish consumers are being offered the chance to win a two day trip to Mallorca plus a pair of tickets to the poolside Love Island live final, with additional limited edition Love Island fridge magnet sets available for runners up.

The on pack promotion will be available on Kellogg’s Corn Flakes and Crunchy Nut and aims to drive engagement with consumers in store and brand awareness on social media.

Niamh Cribbin, Senior Marketing Manager for Kellogg’s Europe, says: “Love Island was one of last year’s most talked about TV shows. The partnership allows us and the retailers to tap into consumers who wouldn’t necessarily expect to see Love Island in this category – or at breakfast. The promotion aims to drive sales and brand awareness, by tapping into a younger and trends influenced shopper.”

The offer runs until July 31^st.

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American Express has joined forces with leading figures from the worlds of music and food to launch ‘Backed By’, a nationwide initiative offering two members of the public the chance to win backing from music legend Nile Rodgers or culinary innovator Gizzi Erskine.

Launched as a continuation of its new brand campaign, ‘Powerful Backing: Don’t Do Business/Don’t Live Life Without It’, ‘Backed By’ celebrates the powerful backing American Express has been giving customers throughout its 168-year history.

In addition to advice and practical support – whether that’s words of encouragement, industry introductions or constructive criticism to help further their musical dreams or foodie business idea – the two winners will have access to life-enriching experiences, such as spending time in the world-famous Abbey Road Studios alongside Nile Rodgers and joining him on the road or cooking in the vibrant Mare Street Market kitchens in Hackney alongside Gizzi Erskine. The successful applicants will be given inspiration and support to propel their passion forward.

In addition to Backed By, as part of its new brand campaign in the UK, American Express has also created an immersive experience that will be bringing the message of powerful backing to life in London’s EC1.

Popping up in in Exchange Square beside Liverpool Street Station, the experience runs from Tuesday June 12^th to Thursday June 14^th and is open to the public between 11.00am and 8.00pm.

Soundtracked by DJ and broadcaster Maya Jama, there are three zones to explore – a restoring Japanese Forest, the Neon Jungle dance space and the Inspiration Zone.

The PR and content-led campaign will be supported through a media partnership with the Huffington Post on a newly created ‘Backed By’ channel on their website.

To be backed by one of these inspirational ambassadors, applicants are invited to submit a portfolio of their work at backedby.co.uk from June 12th 2018.

Caroline Bouvet, Vice President of Brand and Marketing UK, American Express, says: “At American Express we recognise the importance of powerful backing and have a rich heritage championing both new and established talent in the worlds of music and food through our Amex Invites entertainment programme. We are thrilled to be working with Nile Rodgers and Gizzi Erskine on ‘Backed By’ and giving one budding musician and one passionate foodie this once in a lifetime opportunity to learn from the best.”

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Lucozade Ribena Suntory’s TED – Technology, Entertainment and Design – team has delivered its first in-house TV creative; a Lucozade Zero and Love Island tie-up, which is part of a £6m multimedia campaign partnership with ITV2’s BAFTA award-winning Love Island show.

The Love Island partnership will also include VOD, OOH, Digital and Social to drive awareness and cultural relevance with Lucozade Zero’s target audience, as well as a competition to win tickets to the show’s final.

Pioneering a model of collaboration, TED led the strategy and creative, working closely with both the Lucozade Zero brand team and ITV to generate ideas and partnership assets, along with MediaCom to plan the media campaign.

The print and digital out of home elements of the campaign were shot by renowned fashion and sports photographer, Richard Allen, and the in-store campaign features bespoke smart-screens activated by warm weather. Consumers will also be reached through a branded Snapchat lens; Love Island app; influencer content; and a competition to win tickets to the Love Island live final.

The campaign kicks off with an upbeat, summery TV ad where the protagonist is looking for her perfect match. She optimistically engages with a couple of guys until she humorously realises they are not quite for her. Suddenly, the sound of a text gets her excited. It’s a new arrival, and it’s 100% her type. Finally, she’s met the one that ticks all her boxes: Lucozade Zero, a drink that tastes great and has zero sugar. The ad ends with the “Fancy It?” tagline.

Laz Ioannou, TED Creative Director, comments, “Our writers, designers and strategists sit alongside the marketing teams every single day, allowing us to get truly under the skin of their brand. We tapped into the Lucozade Zero brand team’s consumer insight and were then able to take them through every step of our creative process. Collaborating with ITV’s production house also opened the door to an agile and iterative process, which we believe has helped develop a great end result.”

Claire Heys, ITV Brand Partnerships and Content Director, adds: “I’m delighted to welcome Lucozade Zero as a partner of the summer’s hottest show. We’ve worked closely with the brand to launch Lucozade Zero on TV with a fantastic new Love Island themed advert which I’m sure will really appeal to viewers.”

The TED team includes designers, developers and strategists who sit within the Marketing department at Lucozade Ribena Suntory (LRS) responsible for supporting Lucozade Ribena Suntory’s brands with everything from pack shots and shopper marketing creative to billboard ads and TV spots.

Rick Oakley, TED Head, comments, “We recognise the invaluable expertise of our brand’s creative agencies, but we’ve built a hugely talented team able to deliver fine creative work and, where feasible, we’ll deliver projects of this size in-house. The savings the brands make here are ploughed back into media to ensure our great creative is seen even more widely and drives sales.”

Lucozade Zero was the biggest soft drink launch in 2016 and the brand is now worth £30m. The brand is part of Lucozade Ribena Suntory, one of the leading soft drinks businesses in the UK and Ireland. LRS was formed in 2014, and is part of Suntory Beverage & Food Europe. Soft drinks brands include Lucozade Energy, Lucozade Sport, Fitwater, Ribena, Orangina and True Nopal Cactus Water.

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Soft drinks company Nichols plc. has launched a new ‘anti-advertising campaign’ for its Vimto brand, with a budget of £3m covering TV, social media (including a Snapchat lens) and digital, a partnership with student-focused viral content site Unilad, experiential sampling and what it says is an industry-first: personalised Video on Demand (VOD) and cinema.

The new ‘I See Vimto in You’ campaign, which launches during Love Island on June 4th, 2018 and runs throughout the summer, repositions the popular soft drinks brand with its target audience of 15-19 year olds. Nichols says the ad is engaging, disruptive and taps into the teen desire to be themselves in a world of constraints.

Its anti-advertising approach even goes as far as to suggest viewers should close their eyes rather than watch the advert. The new campaign also marks the end of brand representative, the Vimtoad, an animated character created by Aardman and introduced in 2014 to represent the product’s disruptive and anarchic element.

Emma Hunt, Head of Marketing at Nichols, says: “The approach is refreshingly different, just like Vimto. We want the ‘I See Vimto in You’ campaign to be a celebration of individuality and a catalyst for fun, encouraging teens to be themselves and take enjoyment from the everyday – like they do when they drink Vimto.”

Nichols says the campaign shouldhelp Vimto significantly increase its current sales value of £78m, claiming that the brand is in one in five households in the UK and continues to outperform the category, growing at +6.0% YOY.

Hunt adds: “The Vimtoad, who has starred in our campaigns over the past four years, has successfully helped us to deliver the message that Vimto is a multi-fruit soft drink. Under his watch, we’ve seen Vimto rise to its highest levels of brand awareness, but now it’s time to appeal to our core target audience in an innovative and contemporary way.”

The ‘I see Vimto in You’ national multi-media campaign will reach over three million teens across the country. This includes the Vimto brand’s return to TV, with the Love Island launch spot on June 4th. It will also break new ground with its unique personalised advertising across cinema and VOD, as well as experiential sampling, social influencer programme, the Snapchat lens and the partnership with Unilad.

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Accolade Wines has announced that its Echo Falls brand will be 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.

Accolade says that since its launch in 2003, Echo Falls has grown to be the second largest wine brand in the UK behind Hardys, with a sales value of £164m. Its sweeter styled Fruit Fusion sub-brand combines wine with other fruit flavours, including combinations such as strawberry and lime, raspberry and cassis and the UK’s favourite fruit fusion, Summer Berries. The Fruit Fusions range alone is worth over £60m annually.

Laurence Hinton, Brand Manager for Echo Falls, says: “We are partnering with what is probably the UK’s most talked about TV property with a huge appeal among our target audience of 18-24 year olds. Echo Falls is the second largest wine brand in the UK and this partnership allows us to tap into the fun, spontaneous side of our core consumer and engage with them on a new level. This partnership doesn’t just offer compelling airtime it translates into digital and word of mouth which is a key channel for our consumers.”

Last year’s series of Love Island was one of the biggest programmes of the summer with the final delivering ITV2’s biggest ever viewing figures.

As part of the partnership, Echo Falls will be creating co-branded bottles, and the Love Island logo will also appear on POS, in-store, social, digital and advertising. Echo Falls will be directing consumers who buy the limited-edition Love Island branded bottles to their Facebook page where they will be able to take part in a nationwide competition to win a pair of tickets to the Live Love Island final.

The brand new Echo Falls TV advertisement will also been seen across key advertising breaks around Love Island and Video On Demand around the show and other key programming, as well as featuring on the ITV Hub.

Hinton adds: “Our consumers are spontaneous and sociable and they are watching and participating in the Love Island experience which extends from broadcast to digital and generates high levels of conversation in offices, universities and homes across the country. Love Island is a perfect fit for Echo Falls as both brands attract people who have the same attitude and approach to life.”

Claire Heys, ITV Brand Partnerships and Content Director, commenst: “Love Island is one of the biggest shows on TV and I’m very pleased to welcome Echo Falls on board as a partner. We know that the start of the new series is a highly anticipated event and the success of the programme means we can offer amazing opportunities for brands to work with us.”

Accolade Wines 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%.

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Walkers, the UK’s biggest selling savoury snacking brand, has teamed up with ITV to capitalise on the Saturday ‘big night in’ sharing occasion by offering consumers the chance to win prizes live every Saturday night.

The brand will host three advert spots every Saturday night for 16 weeks. The first ad slot will showcase the headline prize of the week. The second will help to remind consumers to scan or enter their codes, which they can find on promotional sharing packs of Walkers crisps and Bugles. The final spot will announce the week’s top prize winner live on ITV to a captive audience.

Promotional packs will be supported by in-store and digital activity. To be entered into the weekly draw, consumers need to buy a sharing pack and either scan the Facebook Messenger code or visit walkers.co.uk/winlive and enter the unique code from their pack.

The promotion, which kicked off on February 17th, is offering Tier One prizes including: seven night holidays for four people to destinations including Orlando, New York, Cape Town, Nice, Create Majorca and Tenerife; £5,000 in cash; or a Suzuki Vitara car.

Tier Two prizes include lastminute.com voucher codes, Rakuten credit which can be used to download music or films, family return tickets on Virgin Rail, Virgin Experience giftcards, Game giftcards, Walkers merchandise goody bags, board games, Thorpe Park tickets and Zipworld family packages.

Finally, one in 10 entrants every week will win a voucher for a free Walkers sharing pack.

Tier One prize winners will be announced during the ad breaks of popular ITV Saturday Night shows, including Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and Britain’s Got Talent. The promotion will be activated across Walkers sharing packs, Mix Ups and Bugles.

Walkers says combining Walkers sharing packs, Mix Ups and Bugles together in one campaign will help to drive awareness of the brand’s sharing portfolio, at a time when sharing occasions are experiencing +17% growth. It claims that spend on Walkers sharing bags, Mix Ups and Bugles is growing at +20.7%.

Rachel Holms, Senior Marketing Director at PepsiCo, comments: “We’re delighted to launch this campaign on our popular sharing range, supporting some of ITV’s most iconic entertainment shows. We are the first brand in the UK to utilise Messenger codes on-pack for competition entry and this is also the first time we have announced winners live on TV. We’re confident that these initiatives will drive mass participation and excitement with consumers. Our TV adverts every Saturday night will be unmissable and the prizes will mean people won’t want to miss out.”

The Walkers brand is owned by PepsiCo.

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No alcohol beer Budweiser Prohibition has teamed up with Love Island star and personal trainer, Gabby Allen, to unveil a fleet of ‘beer floats’ that will travel the country giving away free Budweiser Prohibition Brew to UK consumers and help them ‘drink smart’ throughout 2018.

The campaign is part of AB InBev’s UK launch of Budweiser Prohibition Brew, the brand’s first alcohol-free beer.

To complement the partnership with Allen and the sampling push, Budweiser is also partnering with Time Out to raise awareness of the new Prohibition Brew and give a helping hand to consumers looking to moderate their drinking this January.

The partnership included a four-page cover wrap on the Tuesday 16th January issue, as well as the distribution of 50,000 product samples with each magazine at key stations across the capital, such as London Victoria, London Paddington, London Bridge and Liverpool Street. An additional 30,000 samples were distributed on the evening of Thursday 18^th January, targeting commuters as they started planning their weekends, who might be tempted to break their alcohol-free resolution.

Time Out has produced a digital hub, which will house content about the alcohol-free beer and advise Londoners on how they can make the most of going out with friends while moderating their alcohol consumption.

Budweiser Prohibition Brew is also working with street food operators Street Feast. Until 3^rd February, Dinerama Shoreditch and Giant Robot Canary Wharf will host the first-ever Budweiser Prohibition taste test, where people will be challenged to taste three different Budweiser beers and guess which is the new Prohibition brew – with winners receiving their next Bud for free.

The Budweiser Prohibition Brew campaign is being supported by an Out Of Home advertising campaign, as well as digital and social content across Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. These elements will focus on Budweiser Prohibition Brew’s great taste, and show consumers that they can still enjoy a beer with friends if they choose not to drink. The social activity will lead consumers to the campaign micro-site, www.budprohibition.com, where they can sign up for a free can of Budweiser Prohibition, redeemable at Tesco.

AB InBev worked with content agency The Story Lab for the partnership with Time Out, while social creative is being handled by Elvis. Anomaly is handling the OOH creative, and the nationwide sampling campaign and the partnership with Gabby Allen is being handled by PR agency 3 Monkeys Zeno.

Sascha Cordes, Senior Brand Manager Budweiser, says: “We are incredibly excited to launch Budweiser Prohibition Brew to the UK, our first ever alcohol-free beer, and even more excited to unveil our fleet that will be delivering the brew up and down the UK, helping the nation stick to their goals this January and beyond. People today are increasingly drinking less alcohol, as part of the broader healthy-living trend. In 2018, we predict this trend to continue, and don’t think there could be a better time for us to launch Budweiser Prohibition Brew for people who are looking for the great taste of beer, but with 0% alcohol.”

In the first two weeks of January alone, Hitwise data suggests searches for “alcohol free beer” increased 171% – but the data also suggests that consumers are finding it hard to stick to their resolutions, with recent searches tailing off.

AB InBev UK research reveals that, as a nation, Britons are definitely drinking less alcohol – a trend that is being driven by millennials – with the low and no-alcohol beer category growing 19.5% in the UK over the past year.

Budweiser Prohibition is the latest beer in AB InBev’s low- and no-alcohol portfolio in the UK, which already includes the market-leading alcohol-free beer Beck’s Blue and Bud Light, brewed to 3.5% ABV.

The expansion of the low- and no-alcohol portfolio is part of AB InBev’s Global Smart Drinking Goals, which includes a pledge that 20% of its global beer volumes will be low-to-no alcohol by 2025, alongside deeper investments in programs that measurably shift social norms and behaviors around the harmful use of alcohol.

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Cadbury is partnering the new live action/CGI movie, Peter Rabbit – launching in the UK on March 16th – for an on-pack promotion which will offer five families the chance to win their own break to the home of Peter Rabbit and Beatrix Potter, the Lake District, plus other Peter Rabbit-themed prizes including tote bags, bunny ears and carrot pens.

Promotional packs will be available across the brand’s family sharing and gifting ranges. In addition, there will be a Cadbury Dairy Milk Peter Rabbit Easter Egg and Toy pack, containing a Cadbury Easter egg and a plush toy of either Peter Rabbit or Flopsy Rabbit from the new film.

Hortense Rothenburger, Senior Brand Manager for Easter at Mondelēz International, says: “Our purple Cadbury egg has been seen as icon of the Easter season for decades and we’re excited to combine this with another British icon with heritage on a number of products in our shell egg, family sharing and novelty ranges.

“This new collaboration allows us to offer something more to consumers and drive even more excitement during the season with a range of joyful prizes that will help families create memories. What’s more, toys are the third biggest gift category after chocolate and flowers at Easter so we believe we can drive more value to the category with our new NPD.”

The star prizes are five Lake District short breaks, including travel and three night’s hotel accommodation for a family of two adults and two children (aged 15 or less), and activities which could include bike hire, a tree top adventure, entry to a Lake District Farm Park or entry to The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction.

Tier 2 prizes include 200 Peter Rabbit carrot pens, 517 Peter Rabbit tote bags; and 300 pairs of Peter Rabbit ears.

Consumers enter by buying a promotional pack and looking for winning coupons inside. Winning coupons have been randomly distributed amongst the stocks of promotional products. Winning coupons have a Unique Reference Number on, and consumers who find one have to go to the promotional website, www.cadburypeterrabbit.co.uk. The promotion is open to resident s of the UK and Republic of Ireland aged 18 and over (there is a No Purchase Necessary route available for consumers living in Northern Ireland).

The new Peter Rabbit movie is based on the characters created by Beatrix Potter. It has been filmed in 3D and combines live-action and CGI animation. Peter Rabbit is voiced by James Corden. Margot Robbie, Elizabeth Debicki and Daisy Ridley as Peter’s sisters Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, and Sia as Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. It has been produced by Columbia Pictures and is being distributed by Sony Pictures.

The Cadbury brand is owned by Mondelēz International, the global snacking company with 2016 net revenues of approximately $26 billion. Mondelēz is a world leader in biscuits, chocolate, gum, candy and powdered beverages, with power brands including Oreo and belVita biscuits; Cadbury Dairy Milk and Milka chocolate; and Trident gum.

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Sony Pictures Releasing UK has appointed agency Lime Communications to manage its brand partnerships and promotional marketing activity on all its key theatrical and home entertainment releases.

Sony’s slate of 2018 releases includes Hotel Transylvania 3 (July 27^th), Venom (October 5^th) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (December 14^th), as well as the home entertainment release of The Crown Series 2 late next year.

Peter Staines, Head of UK Partnerships at Sony Pictures, says: “We’re delighted to be working with Lime. Their creativity and knowledge of the promotional landscape in the UK is second to none and we look forward to delivering best-in-class promotional partnerships on what is an exciting and diverse slate of movies.”

Alex Ward, CEO of Lime, comments: “We’re absolutely thrilled to be representing Sony Pictures in the UK. Their slate of films in 2018 and beyond is incredibly impressive.”

Lime Communications works with media companies and brands to create media partnerships (particularly ones involving film, sports and gaming properties), sales promotion campaigns, retail activations and experiential marketing. It works with leading film and TV distributors as well as leading FMCG brands, including Mars, Procter & Gamble and Pizza Express.

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