To create extra buzz around the start of the new season, we broadcasted this Supercup as a live pre-roll. Not just 30 seconds, but the entire game. So as long as you didn’t skip, you could watch the entire game, for free.

It is probably the first pre-roll people actually started looking for, by clicking random video’s hoping to see the live football game. It was a technical challenge to set up a live connection between the stadium, the add servers and the online video players, but it worked.

As it turns out, fans didn’t skip this pre-roll. The Pre-roll Football Match was viewed by 145.484 people in only 90 minutes. Plus, that same weekend the subscriptions on Play Sports were up with 417% compared to last year’s opening weekend.

There was no communication plan around it, but the word spread quickly via the fans themselves. Like this, we turned every football fan into an ambassador of our brand.

The Preroll Football match is a campaign that can only be made online. It has digital technology (the pre-roll video) and digital consumer behaviour (skipping that pre-roll as quickly as possible) at the heart of the very idea. Moreover, we turned the most annoying part of digital media into the best entertainment there is: a live, first class football match.

Play Sport wants to be the leader in sports in Flanders. Therefore we think, talk and do things the way sports fans do. In the middle of the action, always up close, there when it matters. Because Play Sports does not want sports fans to miss a second of their favourite game. Which is exactly why we broadcasted it for free.

We decided not to make a classic campaign, but let the product do the talking. We used a live football match in an advertising medium, in a way it would reach real fans.

Telenet Play Sports wants to be the leading brand in sports in Belgium, and especially in football. Every year, the season starts with the Supercup, the battle between the last season’s two winners. In Flanders it’s only broadcasted on Play Sports.

The objectives were to create extra buzz around the start of the new season, to get more subscribers for Play Sports and to create a sense of market leadership around Play Sports.