The AFL celebrates the people in new ‘You Make The Game’ campaign via Cummins&Partners
Four generations of Richmond fans, from 89 year old Joan to great-grand daughter Zoe lead a cast of real fans starring in the AFL’s new ad campaign to launch the 2015 Toyota AFL Premiership Season.
The campaign ‘You Make The Game’, developed with Cummins&Partners, is a celebration of the most important element of the game, the people.
AFL general manager of people, culture and community, Dorothy Hisgrove said that the campaign celebrates the passion of the fans, members and supporters.
Says Hisgrove: “The AFL has made important decisions this year, listening and
acting on issues the fans care about. This ad celebrates the fact that our game doesn’t exist without the passion and support of fans, and we celebrate them and their stories of passion.”
Says Jim Ingram, ECD, Cummins&Partners: “This campaign is for
supporters of the game at all levels, those who make our game extraordinary. In fact, every person cast in this commercial is an AFL fan, with most of them recruited through club fan squads. Go Dons.”
The AFL season begins on April 2nd when the Tigers take on the mighty Blues.
AFL
Dorothy Hisgrove (Pies), General Manager – People, Customer & Community
Julian Dunne (Blues), Head of Brand and Market Insights
Matt Todd (Saints), Marketing Manager – Brand
Cummins&Partners, Agency
Jim Ingram (Bombers) and Ben Couzens (Swannies), Executive Creative Directors
Frank Trobbanni (Hawks), Senior Art Director
Michael Davey (Blues), Senior Copywriter
Rod Mooseek (Blues), Group Account Director
Andrew Stone (Dees), Account Director
Adam Ferrier (Eagles, Dockers and Swans), Chief Strategy Officer
Jess Thompson (Go Tiges!), Head of Broadcast Production
Finch, Production Company
Alex Roberts (Swans), Director
Camilla Dehnert (Blues), Producer
Corey Essey (Bulldogs), Executive Producer
Tim Tregoning (Swans), DOP
Risk Sound, Audio Production
Method Studios Melbourne, Post Production
39 Comments
I’m a fan of fans! Love it.
patronising and boring and fake. sad. such a great opportunity. anyone that loves the game knows it’s the foot that matters.
Feels forced. An invented ‘truth’.
See you in round 1 Franco.
Its better than the NRL ad. Nice idea.
Like it. Nice idea nicely expressed. What afl needs.
“Make the banners” and we’ll show some footage of Eric Banner. Brilliant.
Really daggy and really tragic and really cheap-looking.
I want to be blown away by the AFL season launch ad. Like they used to do.
What about watching a bunch of fans in contrived scenarios is going to get the people excited?
Go to the bench and have a think about it.
Flatter than a deflated Sherrin.
Oh no. Its usually a no contest between the AFL and NRL brand work, but this is a poor Ben-Cousins to the NRL campaign this year. What happened? Cue a self indulgent brand manifesto. It doesn’t look like “Australia’s Game,” even though you went ahead and actually said it in the VO.
Unfortunately it’s just crap.. But no worse than any other dross that big agencies and wannabe agencies are making in Australia right now. Same old, same old..
This is just embarrassing. So try-hard and forced. Feels like it’s been written by someone who doesn’t even like sport. Doesn’t make me a proud AFL fan. NAB is doing better things for footy than the AFL is. Tragic.
Please stop infecting the game i love with this marketing dribble!!!
Or a least try to disguise it a bit with production values or something, this is just horrible.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oxpyRreruU
For god sake, get this mistake off my television and get back to what you used to do!!
Carn the Hawks!
In a race to the sports marketing race to the bottom of the entertainment barrel, you guys just won by a land slide.
WORST AFL AD EVER. EVER.
More like a marketing document than an ad.
SHAME!
AFL ads used to be a great. Confident, classy and by far the best sports ads in Oz.
This is the opposite, in every way.
Get GPY&R back on the phone and stop this crap ever happening again.
Seriously.
In the same way as driving nails into my dick!
AFL!
That stinks of marketing.
I like it.
Looks like the AFL, NRL and Cricket Aus are pushing out the same politically correct drivel that has to feature a dozen mums and facepaint as a minimum.
How bout something for the real fans? Stand for something rather than trying to please everyone / offend no one.
2015 it seems is the year of the fan, or so the AFL hopes you believe.
Gotta win back a bit of ground after taking footy fans for granted (and messing around with match times, ticket prices, cost of food etc etc).
I guess this is what you get when you take a very deliberate client wish list/strategy and turn it into an ad. Probably a pretty tough job for the creatives I’d say.
Funny though, with a better VO (more character, more presence) I reckon it would hold together a lot better.
More of a PR exercise than a true brand campaign.
Hope the punters buy into it, but the proof will be if the AFL truly deliver on what the fans want.
Just mix in an ‘I’ and you’ve got the FAIL this shite is.
Using fans always was a good idea – just ask Nike, Coca Cola, Adidas et al.
‘Shame this drivel (please note correct spelling ‘Oh, God no!) isn’t in the different league their work still is.
Needs more Geeeeeeelong.
@Norm De Plume
Couldn’t agree more.
It’s always going to be a hard one to please folks on this campaign, given how close everyone is to the sport.
But, it’s a good effort i think. Might not be the best one we’ve ever had, but its still nicely done. Lots of action, lots of insights, some funny lines.
The ones screaming abuse at it are just being emotional, you cant blame them for that!
Not sure how Ferrier can lay claim to barracking for 3 teams though!
Doesnt fire me up to watch, go or listen to the incredible feats on display, the breathtaking levels of skill or the real excitement of ‘playing’ on your teams side…totally insipid crawl to the fans…if they mean that much to you actually give them something in return… who wants to look at fans…what a waste of a great opportunity!
People either HATE Cummins work or LOVE it. It feels like the only people commenting either didn’t get hired by Cummins or are current employees.
No one is willing to front and call their work pedestrian and mediocre – like this is.
There are a lot of talented people listed on the credits list here. People who have done lots of good work in their careers. This is not their finest hour, but sure they’ll dust themselves off and get back on form for the next one.
You can’t really blame Cummins for this mess.
It’s not the talent at Cummins that is in question, it’s the talent (or lack of) in the AFL marketing/strategy department. The best sport in the country deserves the best heads on it.
The CEO needs to clear the decks because as it stands right now, the AFL’s best work is well and truly behind them.
You’re the reason we fly.
The AFL used to make good ads.
And not horrible rip-offs of ads that were pretty horrid to begin with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aV_7qowqI8A
Resorting to lazy cliches is an agency and a game devoid of ideas.
Hi all.
Haven’t been on the CB site for a while.
I just read Andy Fleming’s fun piece on SouthBy (Carlton Fullback reference hidden there). And gave a comment. With my name attached!
And I had a huge smile on my face. Then I scrolled down and saw this report. And 33 comments!. And I saw that another piece we did for Specsavers also got a huge amount of commentary.
Obviously some things don’t change!
Neither I nor the team are bothered by this because people motivated to anonymously troll are doing so for reasons that are wholly personal and not professional. I “like” or ‘don’t like” is not a basis for professional commentary on a site that is supposed to champion our industry.
To me our job is to communicate. In both cases we achieved that. And did it without ego, self conciousness or care for what the chattering classes in the ad industry think.
There is a lot of work…and I mean…a lot of work coming out of Australia that I don’t like. But I didn’t see the brief..and I don’t know the challenges..so I just ask the question “did I get the message”? And if I did…job done.
So..for those who made these comments..and you know who you are but clearly have no courage or backbone to own up…you don’t hurt us, our clients or our reputation.
We revel in your attention.
You are simply swallowing a poison pill and hoping someone else will die.
Sean Cummins
http://thenewdaily.com.au/sport/2015/03/18/new-afl-advert-kicks-aims-win-back-fans/
Have you seen the NRL membership campaign which launched last year? Perhaps there really is no such thing as a new idea.
Love it or hate it, the NRL did it better last year.