In 2013, The British and Irish Lions celebrated their 125th anniversary. As the principal partner, HSBC had the task of strengthening the relationship with their customers and rugby fans, through enhancing their experience of The Lions Tour.

To do this, we created The Legendary Journey: a fully integrated campaign that sought to capture the history that surrounds the tour. We cast legendary Lions from all eras, from famous players to coaches. Our storyline revolved around a specific Lions incident written deep into the Lion’s folk law known as the '99'. For rugby fans, the more you looked the more you found.

A film formed the basis of a campaign that lived online and was pushed out to relevant media touch points at home and online, as well as greeting fans on their arrival in Australia. Tactical idents from the film were also featured on Sky Sports during the tour to make HSBC’s sponsorship visible to the audience. This was also accompanied by reactive press featuring game results, a competition to win tickets to the tour, digital takeovers on platforms such as Sky Sports, bespoke OOH in Australia for those travelling to watch the tour, a bespoke rugby shirt to buy, hospitality events and regularly updated content from our Lions Legends.

Our Lions ship took fans on a Legendary Journey to Australia, with a record 4.6 million watching the tour who were exposed to HSBC’s branding. Our YouTube content meanwhile engaged fans, resulting in over 1.8 million views throughout the tour, making it Google’s leading brand channel for banks. The campaign also achieved its goal of improving HSBC customers’ and fans’ experiences, with 74% of rugby fans saying that HSBC really ‘gets rugby’.