Objectives

As the seventh stop in the Sevens World Series, the Hong Kong Sevens is one of the most anticipated sporting events in the tournament and one of the most popular in the city. Sun Life Financial (Sun Life) is proud to be an official sponsor of Rugby Canada's 2014 Hong Kong Sevens teams and to leverage this as the activation to establish a strong social media presence and be ahead of our competitors.

THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE

-A very tight schedule as the sponsorship was confirmed on February 1^st,2014.

-Competing coverage against title sponsors like Carlsberg, HSBC, and Cathy Pacific with their strong and well established digital media and premiums.

-Derive a solid and innovative campaign and KPIs (refer to 4.2) against the big players above.

-Establish a clear and visible social media presence from scratch.

THE OBJECTIVES

-The whole campaign is to revolve around Facebook and leverage the event as an activation campaign for the new Sun Life Hong Kong Facebook (facebook.com/sunlifehk).

-Build a Facebook page and to achieve 6,000 fans within 3 weeks (~286 fans uptake per day) through an aggressive promotional plan

-Using Facebook to tap into the younger segment with sports as the anchor.

-By end of the campaign, to be ahead of our competitors' Facebook fan page and to establish a solid presence and branding in the digital and social media arena.

-Through our Facebook page, we would like to direct traffic to our website, thus create sales, recruitment and client engagement opportunities for our advisors.

Strategy and Execution

Strategy

Our campaign revolved around the core idea of being part of the game and staying in touch even if you are not in the stadium, and seeing the underdog in action via our Facebook. Hence we produced live feeds, interactive games, and video content on our Facebook with branded giveaways like t-shirts and arm band stickers to promote our Facebook page. We also rewarded our fans with exclusive prizes like authentic rugby jerseys and rugby balls.

In addition, to gain the maximum coverage and reach we integrated with multiple internal / external, online and offline channels and interest groups to promote our Facebook:

•Internal communication was sent to our 650 staff, 1,400 advisors and brokers for their customer networking purpose.

Various promotional tactics included:

•Staff activation with paper cut-outs of players.

•Roadshow with stickers and roll-up banners with our Facebook page name and QR code on event day.

•On-site demo by promoters in roadshow near the Hong Kong Stadium on event day.

•Ride on Facebook feed by few KOL (Key Opinion Leader) i.e. Timable (60,000 fans), fan page of Ruby Canada (24,000 fans) to acquire Facebook page likes.

•Several posts on the Facebook page of Rugby Canada (no. of fans 24,000) to attract HK fans to our page.

•Facebook Ads for page likes.

•eDM (electronic Mail) through the Canadian Chamber of Commerce to cheer the Canada Rugby Team.

•Newspaper advertising in SCMP.

•Press release distributed to all on-line and off-line media.

Identify our 'Edge'

As we had limited budget and resources to differentiate us from the event title sponsors, our campaign did not offer expensive souvenirs to our fans. Instead we offered exclusive items like an autographed

rugby ball and limited edition authentic Team Canada jerseys with the Sun Life logo to attract targets.

The intangible part is to promote our brand by leveraging the energy and atmosphere of the Rugby 7s

through the positive attitude of the Canadian Men's National Rugby 7s team.

Execution

Promotion and content strategy of Facebook on 3 stage

i.Pre-event

Gamification; a simple weekly game is rolled-out before the event date to attract the sports lover

Education; content of infographics, rules of racing, player bios are created to engage fans and to spread the talking points

Cheering team; cheering video, message with Canada team to engage the fans from Rugby Canada's page

Paid Ad; create Facebook Ad to widely spread the opening of Facebook to reach wider group of fans

ii.During the event

Informative; during the event date (29 – 30 March) there are live scores and instant reports on the Facebook page to keep the fans the latest news of Canada team.

Interactive – Road show at the entrance to interact with spectators and to promote Facebook with giveaways

iii.Post-game

Videos of funny moments, photo collage are created to recap those happy moment with fans which align with our branding message 'Life's brighter under the sun'

THE RESULTS

Media