Cannes Lions

Anthony Joshua and Beats Media House

HAVAS MEDIA, London / BEATS BY DRE / 2017

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Overview

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Credits

Overview

Description

Beats’ strong, long-term relationship with Sky Sports would be fundamental, not only allowing it to feed its product and brand into Sky’s boxing coverage but also giving it unprecedented access to Sky’s production teams, enabling Beats to shoot and use raw real-time footage in its content.

The idea of a cross-agency studio was conceived, a hub staffed by brand and agency creatives and strategists that would create and distribute content across a suite of media and channels. Dubbed Beats Media House, it would generate both anticipated and reactive real-time Anthony Joshua content pre, during and post-fight.

Meanwhile, fans would be asked via Facebook and Twitter to share their messages of support, with the best of these displayed on Wembley's perimeter boards; and Beats and Sky would build anticipation and reinforce their partnership with a co-branded Facebook stream from Joshua's locker room.

Execution

Our exclusive three-minute film, ’London's Son’, took viewers on a journey around Joshua's neighbourhood, synergising the boxer's character and values with those of the Beats brand.

As ‘fight night’ neared, the campaign team deployed its most powerful weapon. The soon-to-be champion received a call from Dr Dre himself, whose Skype chat was captured by the boxer, ending up as a Facebook post. The Beats founder also delivered a pair of 24K gold custom Pro headphones.

The moment Joshua arrived at Wembley Stadium wearing his Beats was made into a reactive film; while an hour before the first bell, Beats broke content showing Joshua psyching himself up.

The night's action was punctuated with reactive Instagram stories, and a Snapchat filter was run over Wembley Stadium throughout.

After Joshua's final blow knocked out Klitschko, celebratory content was retargeted at Facebook users who had previously engaged with content with carousels carrying product messaging.

Outcome

- 24.4m views and 890k engagements across all Joshua ‘Be Heard’ social content

- The Apple Music Partnership resulted in 17k clicks and 100k true engagements ('likes', shares and comments)

- Beats brand mentions on Twitter soared on fight night with 1.5k mentions, more than any other sponsor or @skysportsboxing

- The Facebook post of Joshua's Skype chat with Dr Dre went viral, gaining more than 2.5m views and extensive media coverage

- The Sky partnership meant that Beats ‘owned’ the Fight week (Twitter Amplify pre-roll on all published Sky Sports Boxing content, all device display units - 100% SOV). Total dominance.

- 'Back to Beats' gained 3.1m views and 4,000+ retweets

- The film of Joshua's arrival at Wembley amassed 256k views, 4,000 true engagements in the first hour alone, while the footage of him psyching himself up gained 136k views

- Sales up 18% WOW during fight week

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