When you grow playing or watching a sport, it’s easy take what makes it special for granted. So to remind GAA fans about what makes the code so unique (no players get paid, there are no trades or transfers), we decided to show it to them through the eyes of outsiders. But they had to be credible.

Knowing that, we introduced the GAA to people who knew nothing about the game, but knew a thing or two about sport - Jeff Stelling and Chris ‘Kammy’ Kamara; two famous commentators from the world’s biggest and richest football competition - The English Premier League.

We invited them to come and commentate live on the All-Ireland County Championship Final at Croker. But first they would have to learn the game from the grassroots up, just like everyone else. An education that would take them into clubs and communities across Ireland.

Jeff and Kammy’s Journey to Croker played out across AIB’s Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Instagram accounts over eight weeks in the lead up to the All-Ireland Final at the end of September.

The series included eight main episodes, plus a Facebook Live All-Ireland Final broadcast, which were all supported by weekly teaser trailers across the four platforms, plus Youtube homepage takeovers. Each episode ran from 3-10 minutes, with fans actually asking for episodes to be made longer with each episode. Realising this early on, we re-edited later episodes to show more of their journey.

The series was amplified through partnerships with Ireland’s most popular GAA-focused websites and their own social channels, plus interviews with the two on Irish television and radio chat shows across networks.

Across AIB’s Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and Twitter pages, droves of GAA fans joined Jeff and Kammy on the journey, from their first junior practice match to the end of the County Championship Final.

In the process these fans rediscovered a true pride and appreciation for the sport itself, not just the spectacle of the summer County Championships. Dublin beat Mayo in the final by one point, but thanks to Journey to Croker, AIB were clear winners in the battle of the sponsors.

Results:

Over 10 million views within Ireland

5.4x the industry engagement rate

Over 11.5k organic video shares

Reach - 16,969,802

Every episode hit #1 on Youtube’s Trending Chart beating non-branded content (including a Justin Bieber music video release)

Over 150,000 Youtube searches for ‘Jeff and Kammy Journey to Croker’

100% increase in AIB Youtube subscribers

12% increase in favourability (best-in-class compared to all advertisers)