South Africans love their national rugby team, the Springboks. For Absa’s new sponsorship of the team, they asked us how we could unite the country behind the Springboks ahead of the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.To do this we created the concept of The Team of Millions, which showed every South African that they all are a part of the Springbok Team. After the launch of a sponsorship TV advert, we set out to give every South African the chance to really join the team, by taking their places in the world’s biggest team picture.

The campaign launched with a patriotic TV advert, launching the concept of the Team of Millions.From there, players and celebrities got the ball rolling in TV stings and print, asking fans to join the team picture by getting their photos taken at mall activations.Fans who couldn’t make the mall activations could add their photos to the picture on the Team of Millions website.First the billboards went up in different cities, featuring the fans from that city posing with the players.The campaign culminated with 1.3m collectable poster inserts, in the Sunday papers, that featured every one of the fans who supported the Springboks and took their place in the Team of Millions.

The campaign had an overwhelmingly positive response from the public with 'goosebumps' often being used to describe the work. The campaign’s soundtrack was included in the official Sony BMG Rugby World Cup album, reaching number one on the sellers’ list and often being requested on radio stations. The television advert has also recently been awarded South Africa’s best sports commercial of 2011. The campaign site received over 250,000 visits from South Africans living in nearly every country across the planet. Our client Absa’s Facebook page has grown by 200% since the launch of the campaign. They have also commented that it has been there most successful advertising campaign to date and after 2 months, 92% of polled South Africans could recall Absa as the new sponsors of the Springboks.