Grassroots At Heart Of Land Rover RWC 2015 Campaign

Land Rover, a Worldwide Partner of Rugby World Cup 2015, and building on its Official Sponsor status for Rugby World Cup 2011, has used its 20 year heritage within rugby at all levels around the world to create an integrated brand campaign which puts grassroots rugby at its heart.

The #WeDealInReal campaign features a number of different content and experiential activations including a central advertising campaign, mascot leverage, social integration, experiential support, global media partnerships and ambassador engagement.

Eleven amateur rugby clubs from different countries will feature in the brand’s #WeDealInReal global advertising campaign, shown across seven different broadcast partnerships, with hundreds more amateur clubs given the opportunity to get involved and tell their stories via Land Rover’s global digital and social channels.

Laura Schwab, ‎ Marketing Director Jaguar Land Rover UK said: “We have deliberately chosen to shine the spotlight on some of the smallest, most remote, most deserving rugby clubs around the world. At Land Rover, we have a long history of supporting rugby from the grassroots up and we share many of the values that also sit at the heart of the game. Our unique #WeDealInReal campaign aims to put grassroots clubs, and the remarkable characters who represent the true spirit of the game, on the global stage, by telling their stories to an international audience.”

The eleven hero clubs chosen for the integrated campaign each have their own story to tell which will be brought to life through broadcast idents, a series of digital films hosted on Land Rover’s global website and will be championed through the company’s global network of social channels. From Mull Rugby Club in Scotland, where the regular journey to training involves boat trips to and from the island to Davetalavu Rugby Club in Fiji, where residents of the local community take turns to maintain the grass and paint the lines, these clubs form the basis of the #WeDealInReal global advertising campaign.

Schwab continued, “To dedicate our media for the third biggest sporting event in the world to a variety of small clubs may be viewed by some as an unusual approach; but we feel it’s important to show our commitment to all levels of the game.”

Land Rover launched its #WeDealInReal campaign in March by using some of its most high-profile rugby ambassadors to lend a hand at a local club match in Hampshire, England. Legends of the game past and present, including Rugby World Cup winners Jonny Wilkinson, Will Greenwood, Sir Clive Woodward, Brad Thorn and Bryan Habana rewarded amateur side Racal Decca RFC by fulfilling the club’s routine match day preparations as a surprise.

In the build up to Rugby World Cup 2015, Land Rover has been enlisting 96 young mascots who will run out with the teams, including one sourced from every competing nation, with the majority recruited through Land Rover’s existing grassroots programmes such as the Land Rover Premiership Cup in England and the Hitz CSR programme in Argentina.

Starting in 2014, Land Rover used both the International Rugby World Cup Trophy Tour 2015 and the current domestic Rugby World Cup Trophy Tour 2015, to further engage with grassroots clubs.  As part of the international tour to 15 different countries, Land Rover’s ‘Least Driven Path’ activity saw the Webb Ellis Cup taken to remote communities and places it had never been to before. In the UK and Ireland, Land Rover’s bespoke Rugby World Cup 2015 Trophy Tour Defender, created specifically to carry and display the Webb Ellis Cup and enable thousands of fans to see rugby’s biggest prize, visiting rugby clubs, towns and cities as part of a 100 day tour.

Land Rover’s Rugby World Cup 2015 brand campaign was developed through an integrated agency group involving Fast Track, Lean Mean Fighting Machine, LIDA, Mindshare and The Brooklyn Brothers. Rainey Kelly / YNR were responsible for the advertising campaign in partnership with Partisan Productions and Tag.

The #WeDealInReal advertising campaign will launch in the UK on September 18, coinciding with the Rugby World Cup 2015 Opening Ceremony and England’s first match, taking place at Twickenham. Seven official host broadcaster partnerships have been agreed which will see #WeDealnReal content shown in the UK (ITV), Ireland (TV3), France (TF1), Italy (Sky Italia), South Africa (Super Sport), Japan (J Sports) and Australia (Fox Sports).