GOING VIRAL: #InternationalDanceDay meets Game of Thrones
CLIENT: FirstTouch
SEO + Hashtag Research / Video Editing / Creativity / View the post here
CHALLENGE:
The date was April 29, 2019. That date may not mean much at first when you hear it. And it shouldn’t. It’s not a prominent or internationally recognized holiday or event and it most likely isn’t your birthday (and if it is, I’m sorry). While it wasn’t the start of a global event, it actually immediately followed the tail-end of one.
April 28, 2019, was the debut of Episode 4 of the esteemed HBO series Game of Thrones, otherwise known as “The Long Night” aka the moment we had all been impatiently waiting for. Though we are now living in the future and know the disappointment that awaited us a few episodes later, this was still peak hype for the show’s infamous 8th and final season.
At this point, you are probably asking yourself, “What does Game of Thrones have to do with an African soccer brand and how does this even fit into #InternationalDanceDay?”
STRATEGY:
As FirstTouch hit the spring of 2019, our goal was to continue breaking away from our soccer storytelling format and to try and engage and relate to our audiences in real-time. We wanted to meet them where they were at, rather than where we were assuming they’d be.
After looking back on some notes from previous DigiDay and The Ringer podcasts, I decided to try my hand in using live pop culture references and memes to drive attention to our efforts.
On the night of April 28, I sat with my bowl of popcorn like many other GOT fans and hung onto every cliff-hanging moment in the feature film-length episode. As it reached its conclusion, I think I stand with all Arya fans in being hyped about her role in the ending. Sitting wide awake in bed that night, while I sifted through countless fan theories and blog posts, I thought, how could we add our flavor to this moment?
IDEA:
Waking up the morning of the 29th, as I continued to look through trending GOT posts, I started to receive funny videos from friends about #InternationalDanceDay which led to me coming across the hilarious video of Chelsea FC player Anthony Rudiger dancing in the team locker room. I definitely couldn’t plan for the timing of all these factors coming together, but instead of sitting on it, I decided to try and act on it and see what would happen.
RESULTS:
Views – 22,474
Likes – 1,352
These were pretty insane numbers considering we had just started and had a sub-1k follower count at the time and were averaging a reach of 1k and an engagement rate around 7%. This post saw a reach of 40k+ and an engagement rate of 20%. I’d like to think that it made Arya proud, not to mention bringing some laughs to a lot of faces with Rudiger’s dance moves. Anywho, when our work gives us the opportunity to have fun and try new things, we should all answer that call a little more often.
View the Instagram post here.