English football is a circus. Player’s egos are out of control, everyone is sleeping with everyone else’s wife, managers get sacked at the drop of a hat and fighting and diving are commonplace. BUT if you listen to what the fans talk about on the terraces and online, you quickly realise it’s all part of the reason they love the game. If any brand could have some fun with this, it’s Paddy Power.

Paddy Power have a reputation for doing provocative work. So when they asked us to create something for the 2013/2014 football season, we knew it had to be much bigger than a traditional advertising campaign.

We invented a brand new betting platform that completely changes the way fans view the bad behavior in football. It’s simple - Every time players or clubs do something bad, Paddy Power give the fans rewards. When teams sin, the fans win.

We needed fans to hear about this new business idea quickly, so we made loads of noise at the start of the season.

Billboards outside stadiums targeted the worst behaved clubs. They were designed to be provocative enough to make the news.

Then, on Twitter, we encouraged fans to start using the Ball Of Shame hashtag to snitch on their teams.

A launch ad was aired to get everyone’s head around the idea.

From then on, every week we produced topical content to let fans know when bad behaviour had unlocked a new offer: TV, radio, print, Facebook posts and YouTube videos kept us at the heart of the action.

Some other highlights include a film starring famous “badboy” footballer Joey Barton. Dozens of stunts, like our waxwork Alex Ferguson delivered to Old Trafford and a very special Ball Of Shame Player Of the Year awards ceremony, supported by TV.

Ball Of Shame is huge. It has become part of how Paddy Power operate as a company and forced other, much larger bookmakers to take notice. It has also made its way into culture. Not just betting culture, but football culture as a whole. In August 2013, when the campaign launched, Ball Of Shame occupied 34% of sports betting conversation online. It has been picked up by journalists, football players, pundits and most importantly by the fans.

Paddy Power’s Facebook page has almost doubled in size to well over a million fans. From 01.08.13 to 21.3.14 turnover grew by 6% compared to the same period the year before and new customers were up 15%. Punters are using #ballofshame without being prompted. They use it to call out their mates. They use it when talking about the match. And they use it to beg for free bets off Paddy. Really, just search for it.