Tasked with building fans’ hype and excitement for the return of the event after a two-year hiatus, SPORTFIVE Southeast Asia’s Digital Team planned and created a digital and social media content strategy that encompass a fresh visual identity and a comprehensive content mix for the HSBC Singapore Rugby Sevens 2022.
In this Success Story:
The Challenge
An annual event and a crowd favourite on Singapore’s sporting calendar, the 2019 edition of the Singapore Sevens event saw it record its highest ever attendance with over 56,000 spectators across a two-day weekend. However, the tournament was cancelled for two consecutive years due to the pandemic. When the green light was given for the event to make its long-awaited return in 2022, the SPORTFIVE SEA Digital Team was tasked with creating a digital marketing and social media campaign with the objectives of building hype and excitement amongst fans, growing the event’s social media presence, as well as driving ticket sales.
Our Solution
The team knew it was essential to focus on reconnecting with enthusiastic fans who had greatly missed live rugby action, as well as draw new spectators by shining the spotlight on the family carnival atmosphere that has been synonymous with the Singapore Rugby Sevens event.
With this in mind, the campaign theme and accompanying hashtag #TheFam7sReturns was conceptualised to highlight the event’s return and reiterate its family-centric uniqueness. To reinforce the campaign theme and mark the tournament’s new start following its two-year absence, the team also recognised the timely opportunity to refresh all digital assets for the event. A fresh visual identity was since incorporated, giving the creatives a bold and enhanced look-and-feel that fans could easily identify and connect with on social media.
To create an active and consistent online presence for the event, the team curated a comprehensive content mix that includes regular real-time match updates, video highlights, interviews and contest giveaways. Many of these content pieces were produced in vertical video orientation, which is quickly becoming the dominant format in today’s age, and published on channels such as Instagram Reels and Stories that were previously untapped.
Besides creating bite-sized snippets from official broadcast footage, the team also had a camera crew on-site situated on the grandstands and at the fringe activity zones so that the videos were presented from the fans’ perspective, hence adding to the sense of familiarity.
"We are delighted to partner with the HSBC Singapore Rugby Sevens team to curate a social media campaign and highlight its family-centric uniqueness. The promising online engagement statistics attained and strong ticket sales achieved, have demonstrated that there is a considerable audience interest for the Singapore Rugby Sevens and live sporting events. With social media engagement fast becoming a vital part of any event marketing strategy, we are really pleased for the opportunity to help refresh and create engaging content to connect the event with their fans.”
Shane Loi, Digital Marketing Manager, SPORTFIVE SEA
Results
The month-long campaign delivered on media performance via the official HSBC Singapore Rugby Sevens social media platforms. The added focus on creating quality content in trending formats on Instagram also brought about a growth of 48% in followers on the platform.
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million online impressions generated
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million reach
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growth in followers on Instagram
"We are delighted with the results of the digital campaign that SPORTFIVE SEA has put together for the HSBC Singapore Rugby Sevens 2022. We know how important engaging content is for our rugby fans and are really pleased with the variety and depth of content that was created. The refreshed graphic design and application gave the tournament a really strong, consistent look on social media and has resonated well with our fans.”
Steven Rodaway, General Manager, Singapore Rugby Sevens
