Branded Entertainment in South Africa is very much in its infancy as a result of the fact that we consume far more international content than we create for ourselves.The opportunity to integrate brands into entertainment is therefore either limited or, when it is done, is often not aligned to the brand strategy.As is the case in most countries, there are restrictions on alcohol advertising in South Africa, but through the effective use of innovative branded entertainment, we managed to initiate deeper engagement with the brand than would be allowed on traditional TV stations.

The Carling Black Label Cup changed the way a game of soccer is played and, at the same time, brought the brand property of reward to life for anyone participating as a coach in the Carling Black Label Cup.The effectiveness of the campaign was maximised by utilising a wide range of channels including TV, Radio, Press, Digital, Mobile, On Pack advertising and Point of Sale to get the message out to as many people as possible.The goal was to drive them to engage with this groundbreaking sponsorship campaign over and over again using mobile as this channel has extremely high penetration across South Africa.

The campaign generated over $12.2m of PR for the brand.We received 10.5m votes in 7 weeks.

78% of the fans engaged with the campaign more than once.82% of the votes came from a new target audience for Carling Black Label.Over 80,000 fans watched the Carling Black Label Cup live in Johannesburg's World Cup Stadium - with millions more watching on TV.Carling Black Label saw strong growth in a declining beer market.