Aside from matters of family, love, and religion, little else raises more passion on a global scale than sport. They stand as the ultimate uniter and divider in the realm of entertainment. With Summer 2024 poised to deliver one of the biggest sporting calendars in recent years, featuring the Olympics in Paris, the Euros in Germany and Champions League in London, a new era of marketing approaches. To examine the meteoric rise of live fan experiences, and what to expect from sports marketing in 2024, IPM sits down with its latest member, C-Screens, the largest provider of Out-Of-Home Screens in the UK. C-Screens will be bringing multiple pop-up screening events, showing live premium sports all day, from iconic bustling city centres through to high end shopping districts such as Covent Garden. Equipped with large state of the art high-definition LED screens and multiple unique activation spaces, C-Screens offers ready-made sporting havens, heralding the future of live fan experiences. But first, let’s remind ourselves why 2024 is so special for sports. 

Summer of Sports 2024

• 2023 set a precedent for the UK, with major sporting events injecting a remarkable £373 million into the national economy, as researched by UK Sport.

• This figure is set to soar with the Guardian heralding this summer 2024 as “one for the ages”, referring to the extraordinary line-up of sporting events.

• The Olympics are set for Paris, with the Champions League final in London. Dublin will host the Europa League Final, and England is a strong contender in the European Championship. The year features two T20 World Cups, The Open Championship, Tour de France, Wimbledon, and the British Grand Prix, among other major events.

• This pivotal moment in sports is also a turning point for marketing. The industry is poised to revolutionise how fans experience, enjoy, and engage with sports.

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With this high concentration of major sporting events, fan experiences are expected to reach peak interest during the summer period. Originally designed to extend the live sports experience beyond the stadium to a wider audience, fan zones emerged in the early 2000s around major football tournaments. These unique brand experiences have since become more than just places to watch sports. They are now immersive hubs of excitement, “bringing the party to the people,” as described by the Paris 2024 sports minister, Amelie Oudea-Castera. By combining the power of the big screen alongside a brand activation can provide a valuable addition to immersive experiences. C-Screens partnership with Multiplay attracted bigger than ever audiences with its free, outdoor live gaming event that featured a knockout style football tournament on the giant screens, streamed simultaneously across multiple locations.

“Today, sports is all about the experience. It’s not just watching a game but feeling part of it, no matter where you are. This evolution has opened up new avenues for engaging with content and creating moments that bring fans together.”

Robert Hicks, CEO, C-Screens

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C-Screens as a modern outdoor broadcaster has a clear goal to entertain consumers and can help brands and agencies facilitate a wide range of brand engagement activations and lifestyle content, as well as offering opportunities with on-site retailing. The effectiveness of these captivating environments stems from the extended dwell time of audiences engrossed in the action on the big screens, providing an optimal setting for impactful and emotionally charged consumer interactions.

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Enlivening Spaces, Engaging Minds

With key sporting milestones compressed between May and September this Summer, live-screening experiences are one of the hottest trends in marketing right now. C-Screens stands at the forefront of this movement, providing solutions for official sport sponsors as well as catering for those who are just dipping their toes into the world of sport to engage in new and creative ways with a sport loving audience. As the latest addition to the IPM Community, C-Screens extends a warm invitation to fellow IPM members to help support their promotional and brand experiences this sporting season. If you’re interested in exploring what’s possible, please get in touch with hello@c-screens.com

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First Bus Scotland has delivered a first for Glasgow by unveiling the world’s largest ‘model’ bus in the city’s famous George Square. The ‘bus-in-a-box’ experiential stunt was used as the launch pad for First Bus Scotland to announce the arrival of 75 new buses into the city.

The activation was designed, delivered and managed by creative brand and strategy agency MadeBrave, which was appointed in July as First Bus Scotland’s sole creative agency. The eye-catching, interactive ‘bus-in-a-box’ display aims to help the city’s largest bus operator engage with customers and get them on board the new buses, which include free WiFi and USB charging points.

The 16-foot structure was the focal point of a customer awareness day and the first stop for a far-reaching integrated creative marketing programme that runs for the next three months with the aim of changing people’s perception of bus travel in the city.

This latest activity follows the “kids go free” campaign that ran over the summer, with MadeBrave developing a creative campaign to promote the free travel initiative.

Andrew Jarvis, Managing Director for First Scotland, says: “MadeBrave has created an eye-catching campaign that will allow us to communicate to customers the significant investment that we’re making to bus services in Glasgow, and ultimately help us to attract more people on board our services.”

Andrew Dobbie, founder of MadeBrave, adds: “First Bus Scotland appointed MadeBrave to drive a change in customer behaviour and help the business shift its focus more on to the customer, through its creative communications. The bus-in-a-box initiative was designed to enable First Bus Scotland to have some fun with its customers and present the humble bus as a more playful ‘toy’, just like the ones we all had when we were kids.”

The second phase of the multichannel campaign sees a creative programme of activity delivered across outdoor, radio, print, digital and social channels, as well as on and in buses across First Bus Scotland’s fleet.

MadeBrave is an award-winning agency based in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London. It works with UK national and international brands across several sectors, including the BBC, Hard Rock Hotels, Naked Grouse, Jacobs Engineering, Vango and Distell. MadeBrave acquired content production agency Campfire in July 2018, creating the BornOriginal Group to further enhance its client service offering and help drive group turnover to a projected £2.3m for 2018.

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Glenfiddich is launching a new campaign to promote Fire & Cane, the fourth and latest release in the Glenfiddich “Experimental Series”. The campaign broke on July 23rd 2018 in the USA, with sampling and experiential activations at the Taste of the Cocktails event in New Orleans, and will roll out in other lead markets later in the year – including France in September, the UK in October and Taiwan in 2019

The campaign is part of the William Grant & Sons-owned brand’s continued drive to recruit new drinkers into the whisky category.

The New Orleans tasting saw the whisky paired with grilled andouille (local Cajun sausage), grits, peppers and cream cheese.

The campaign was put together for Glenfiddich by London-based creative agency Space, which has been awarded the lead strategic and creative responsibilities for launching the next edition in the Experimental Series. The campaign brings to life the brand’s maverick spirit and focuses on the power of a simple question and how it can lead consumers on a journey to challenge conventions.

The newest expression in the Experimental Series is an unexpected peated whisky finished in Latin rum casks.

The campaign will be predominantly social, and kicks off with a 5-second teaser video. It will also feature short-form AV assets, Out of Home, print, interactive social assets such as Facebook canvases and Instagram polls, as well as experiential and sampling, all created by Space.

Campaign visuals centre on the liquid’s unique flavour profile. The hero 20” social video features animated CGI sugar crystals and innovative liquid photography showcasing the smokiness and sweetness of Fire & Cane. It runs in reverse order, opening with the product beauty shot (the outcome of the experiment), and closing with the moment of inspiration (the genesis of the experiment).  The core message is that when you question convention, as Glenfiddich has with Fire and Cane, you can spark the unexpected.

Oliver Rudgard, Global Brand Director at Glenfiddich, says: “Fire & Cane is #4 in the Glenfiddich Experimental Series.  The Experimental Series demonstrates our continued commitment to create new, innovative and inspiring whiskies.  Working with the great team at Space, we have pushed the creative boundaries further to create a set of new codes in the single malt category which are set to create cut through, attention and desire for the Fire & Cane launch across the globe.”

Jason Nicholas, Managing Partner at Space, adds: “The Experimental Series offers the chance to continually work on something that challenges a category. The creative idea in this campaign has led to the creation of a beautifully crafted and visceral campaign that will get under the skin of new drinkers and whisky advocates alike. Working with Glenfiddich on this their key campaign for 2018 has been a great opportunity and led to a campaign we’re really proud of.”

Glenfiddich most recently collaborated with Space to launch its first whisky finished in India Pale Ale (IPA) casks. This was backed by a global TV campaign, also created by Space.

Space is an award-winning integrated marketing agency which works across social, mobile, outdoor, in store, on-pack, in print, live or virtually. Clients include Heineken, Arla Foods, William Grant & Sons, General Mills, Eurostar, Sky, Coral, Bundesliga, UEFA, NBA and AELTC. Our work has been globally recognised with four ‘best in the world’ awards

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To celebrate its 40th birthday, and its new Birthday Cake flavour, ice-cream brand Ben & Jerry’s ran a giant birthday cake themed ball pit at London’s Old Spitalfields Market.

For one day only on Saturday 10^th March, ice cream lovers were able to dive into a ball pit while being churned around like the ingredients in the making of the Birthday Cake ice cream. Ben & Jerry’s swirling Birthday Cake ball pit came complete with giant candles and 45,000 multi-coloured balls – plus free ice cream, with the Ben & Jerry’s team scooping free samples of the new Ben & Jerry’s Birthday Cake flavour, which includes vanilla cake batter ice cream, pink frosting, strawberry swirls and cake pieces. The new variety retails at £5.49.

The launch is being supported by a £3.5m marketing campaign spanning TV, digital and outdoor advertising.

Christina Dunn, country business leader at Ben & Jerry’s UK and Ireland, said: “We know that our fans like to gift Ben & Jerry’s to their friends, so new Birthday Cake responds directly to this insight, with a new addition to our flavour family ideally suited for the gifting occasion. We have also seen an increasing desire for innovation when it comes to birthday cakes, with boundaries being pushed from traditional designs to impressive, bespoke creations.”

The Old Spitalfields Market event was free, and ran from 11am – 6pm on Saturday 10 March.

The campaign was created by PR agency W Communications, with experiential agency Bearded Kitten delivering the event.

Ben & Jerry’s was launched in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, USA, where it is still headquartered. The business was bought by Anglo-Dutch food and household products group, Unilever, in 2000.

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Samsung has been supporting the launch of the Galaxy Note8 with experiential and Out-of-Home take-overs of key locations in some of the world’s busiest cities, including London’s Waterloo Station.

At the end of September, Waterloo Station was decked out in eye-catching images of the device encouraging commuters to “Do bigger things.” Waterloo is the busiest rail station in London with a footfall of 4,196,748 every two weeks, and contains the largest indoor advertising screen in Europe in the form of JCDecaux’s 40 x 3 metre Motion@Waterloo.

Commuters and other visitors to Waterloo were given the chance to have their image displayed on the station’s digital screens or have it emailed to them to share on social. They could also enter a competition to win the new tablet device.

Cities including Berlin, Rome, Paris, Singapore, Milan and New York have been the backdrops for a global campaign which communicates the creative possibilities powered by Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone through immersive Galaxy Note8 signage.

The campaign follows a similar one held in New York City’s Times Square on September 15^th. The iconic entertainment centre and tourist destination , which sees an estimated 380,000 visitors every day, was illuminated with S Pen-embellished portraits, animated illustrations and whimsical images of the Galaxy Note8 across 43 screens.

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German low-cost airline Eurowings, the State Tourist Board Baden-Württemberg, Europa-Park, and Stuttgart Airport have once again partnered to promote their destinations and brands in the UK via a Virtual Reality experiential activation at Westfield Stratford City.

Created by London based communications agency, collab-ed, the UK Summer campaign built on last year’s award-winning #nextstop campaign to once again encourage Londoners to discover the beautiful SouthWest of Germany via convenient Eurowings flights between London and Stuttgart Airport.

In 2016, Ed Euromaus, the mascot of Europa-Park, was welcomed by Londoners as they helped him find the #nextstop for his bus in a campaign also created by collab-ed. This year, Ed returned to take Londoners on a virtual reality journey to his home, Europa-Park, in Baden-Württemberg.

The 2017 campaign centred around a VR experiential activation in Westfield Stratford City where visitors could check-in to #FlyWithEd on board his special Eurowings plane to the Sunny Side of Germany; touching down in Stuttgart Airport to discover the Black Forest, before taking a rollercoaster ride through Europa-Park, Germany’s largest theme park.

Campaign seeding via social media continued the narrative from last years’ campaign whilst this year the reactions of visitors were videoed and shared across the campaign channels via the hashtag #FlyWithEd in order to drive social amplification.

Additional Out Of Home activity consisting of digital OOH throughout Westfield Stratford City and print OOH throughout Stratford International Station further promoted the VR experiential activation.

Visitors also had the opportunity to extend the experience via campaign gifting, with VR cardboards and a free digital download of the Coastiality app (App Store & Google Play) enabling the experience, and partner brands, to reach directly into the homes of an even wider audience.

“The response has been fantastic,” says Manuela Spröwitz, International Marketing Manager at Eurowings. “The 360° video is a great tool to inspire visitors to travel with Eurowings to Europa-Park and the region. We are really happy to increase the awareness of our flight offers with this innovative and exciting flying experience – on ground!”

“It’s been great to be able to build on last year’s success and really take this story to the next level”, says Nichola Kirkman, Creative Director of collab-ed. “This year’s campaign has been tremendously well received by Londoners and is yet another indicator to us that audiences are increasingly receptive to innovative marketing and being reached in more meaningful and powerful ways.”

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The first-ever EU-wide report to isolate the economic and social contribution of advertising and marketing communications highlights the sector’s ability to drive economic growth across the EU.

Value of Advertising, an independent study by Deloitte, has identified a multitude of benefits generated by advertising to the overall economy, jobs and civil society.

Using econometric modelling, the study, which was commissioned by the World Federation of Advertisers and other industry partners, found that advertising contributed nearly 6 million jobs across the EU and 4.6% of total GDP.

Every Euro spent on advertising is estimated to add an additional seven Euros to GDP. This means that the €92 billion spent on advertising in 2014 in the EU would have contributed €643 billion to GDP, representing 4.6% of the overall EU GDP.

The study found that advertising contributes to the wider economy through its ability to support competitiveness by providing consumers with information on products and services and helps to increase their choice of goods and services. This, in turn, drives innovation by incentivising businesses to create differentiated products and services, allowing them to out-compete their competitors not just in the EU but around the world.

• Advertising provides personal and social benefits by funding or part funding media services. Advertising ensures that EU citizens benefit from news, entertainment and communications tools at a reduced cost or even for free. The €92bn spent on advertising in 2014 directly funded content of all kinds.
• Outdoor advertising also provides additional civic benefits in the form of an improved urban environment while search engines help people to reduce both the time and financial cost of seeking new information.
• Without advertising, funding for all sorts of media would be reduced. This could drive up costs to consumers, damage media independence, reduce the amount of news and entertainment content and force professional sports and cultural events to seek financial support from other sources.

Online, advertising largely funds free services that people across Europe use at little or no cost. For example, around 70% of EU citizens regularly use email services, while social media are accessed extremely widely.

Stephan Loerke, CEO of the World Federation of Advertisers says: “Advertising is a vital economic engine that encourages competition, drives innovation in business and provides significant benefits to society by funding or part funding media services, from news to entertainment. Policy-makers should be mindful that ad restrictions have important economic, social, and cultural consequences.”

The European ad industry is calling for a moratorium on further restrictions on advertising to ensure that the overall impact of any new rules, including their unintended consequences, is fully assessed. Right now, the industry is concerned that the revised Audio Visual Media Services and ePrivacy directives will create additional restrictions, hurting the European digital economy and reducing its potential to create local champions and more jobs.

“Advertising matters for employment, innovation, culture and entertainment, and supports media plurality, which is fundamental to democratic freedoms. The benefits are pervasive and run through the fabric of society,” said Loerke.

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The latest Change4Life campaign, backed up a by a free app which scans product barcodes and compares ingredients, aims to educate families about the significant amount of sugar children are consuming even before they get to school.

The new push from Public Health England (PHE), the government department behind Change4Life, launched today. Its main message is that children consume half the daily recommended sugar intake before the morning school bell rings.

The campaign urges parents to Be Food Smart and take more control of their children’s diets. The new Be Food Smart app highlights just how much sugar, saturated fat and salt can be found in everyday food and drink that their children consume.

The free app works by scanning the barcode of products allowing parents to compare brands and also features food detective activities for children and mini missions the whole family can enjoy.

The app is an integral part of a campaign that also includes TV, digital and outdoor, plus the distribution of 4.6 million free Be Food Smart packs to primary school aged children and families at local events across England.

PHE says that on average children in England consume more than 11g of sugar at breakfast time alone, almost three sugar cubes. The recommended daily maximum is no more than five cubes of sugar for 4 to 6 year olds and no more than six cubes for 7 to 10 year olds per day. By the end of the day, UK children have on average consumed more than three times these recommendations.

A survey conducted for PHE’s Change4Life campaign found that parents are unsure what makes up a healthy breakfast for their children. Most parents (84%) whose children consume three or more sugar cubes in their breakfast think their child’s breakfast is healthy.

PHE says some of the main sources of sugar at breakfast time include sugary cereals, drinks and spreads. Away from the breakfast table, children are also consuming too much sugar, saturated fat and salt in items such as confectionery, biscuits, muffins, pastries and soft drinks.

Dr Alison Tedstone, chief nutritionist, Public Health England, says: “Children have far too much sugar, and a lot of it is before their first lesson of the day. It’s crucial for children to have a healthy breakfast, but we know the mornings in a busy household can be fraught. That’s why we’ve developed our Be Food Smart App, taking some of the pressure off parents and helping them to choose healthier food and drink options for their children.”

Public Health England exists to protect and improve the nation’s health and wellbeing, and reduce health inequalities. It does this through world-class science, knowledge and intelligence, advocacy, partnerships and the delivery of specialist public health services. PHE is an operationally autonomous executive agency of the Department of Health.

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UK promotional staff provider and experiential agency Hype Live Media has merged with sister company Mobile Media under the new MMedia Group (MMG) corporate identity.

Mobile Media specialises in ‘Mobile Out of Home’ media, and claims to be the first company to have developed the Advan concept in the 1980s.

The newly formed MMG will offer clients a wide range of media formats including Mobile Out of Home solutions (such as Digivans and Advans), Promotional Staff, Experiential Marketing services, Digital Out of Home, LED Screens, Event Production, Content Management and (through its partnership with LHRLINK, Heathrow’s only branded bus network) Airport Advertising.

Karen Olsen, CEO of MMG, says: “MMG packs a punch when it comes to delivering impactful client messages – whether you are looking for brand ambassadors, mobile formats, airport advertising or full event screens with production, we are able to deliver beyond expectations with over 30 years of experience behind us.”

MMG clients include Specsavers, Marc Jacobs, Schwarzkopf, Coty, Cadbury, Greggs, Emirates and Dogs Trust. It recently ran a campaign for Dogs Trust where it created a giant billboard covered with toy dogs – as passers-by removed the toys, the ad’s stark message about the horrors of puppy smuggling was revealed (a video of this activation can be seen on the Dogs Trust YouTube channel),

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This weekend saw the clocks go back in the UK as British Summertime ended: and cancer charity Marie Curie took the opportunity to take over London’s iconic Piccadilly Circus outdoor advertising sites and turn them yellow in support of Marie Curie Nurses who worked an extra hour while the rest of the country enjoyed more time in bed.

Working with Saatchi & Saatchi London, for one hour only between 7.00pm and 8.00pm on Saturday October 29th 2016, brands including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Samsung, Hyundai Motor and the Egyptian Tourism Authority all showed their support for the charity’s ‘Extra Hour’ campaign by agreeing to donate an hour of their advertising time and turn their artwork yellow.

The iconic Piccadilly Lights advertising site, owned by Land Securities, also featured messaging for the full hour explaining why the site had turned yellow and included a call to action to donate to show support for the charity.

Dr Jane Collins, Chief Executive for Marie Curie, said: “We’d like to say a massive thank you to all the brands and media owners who have donated their advertising space in recognition of the work that our amazing nurses do. Practically everyone will be affected by terminal illness at some point in their lives, so it’s really important that more people are aware of the work that our nurses do and that they are able to receive our help if and when they need it.”

Andy Jex, Executive Creative Director at Saatchi & Saatchi London, added: “Saturday night, as the clocks go back – everyone’s out making the most of an extra hour on the town. Meanwhile Marie Curie Nurses are working an hour extra to care for the terminally ill. Piccadilly Circus was the ultimate place to showcase this campaign. Thanks so much to all the brands and media owners involved, we really couldn’t have done it without you.”

As part of the campaign, additional digital advertising billboards across the UK included digital billboards on top of London’s black cabs also supported the ‘Extra Hour’ campaign. Shot by award-winning photographer Josh Cole, the creative will feature an image of Marie Curie Nurse, Sally Monger-Godfrey, and urge people to support the Marie Curie’s Nurses.

Brands and outdoor media companies who have pledged their support include Amazon, EDF, Spotify, WHSmith, Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward Estate Agent, The Daily Telegraph, Primesight, Clear Channel, Ocean Outdoor, City Outdoor, Forrest, Signature and Verifone Media, Global Radio and Jazz FM.

UM London and out-of-home agency Rapport worked with media owners around the UK to secure these additional spaces.

Other elements of the campaign include a 60” online film featuring Marie Curie Nurses and a 30” film which features a message of support from actress Alison Steadman whose mother was cared for by Marie Curie Nurses.

The ‘Extra Hour’ campaign aims to raise awareness of the fact that Marie Curie Nurses work overnight, providing care and support in people’s homes. Those wishing to make a donation to help fund more care and support from Marie Curie’s Nurses can text EXTRA HOUR to 70755 to donate £5. Marie Curie receives 98% of the donation.

Marie Curie is the UK’s leading charity for people with any terminal illness. The charity helps people living with a terminal illness and their families make the most of the time they have together by delivering expert hands-on care, emotional support, research and guidance. Marie Curie employs more than 2,700 nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals, and with its nine hospices around the UK, is the largest provider of hospice beds outside the NHS.

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