As Yanks, we don’t quite appreciate the ins and outs of rugby — but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a good pranking of its fans a la this ambitious effort from Heineken and Irish indie creative agency Rothco.
Promoting the beer giant’s sponsorship of the European Rugby Champions Cup, the three-pronged prank utilized actors, Twitter, a fake image and fake press conference to turn the tables on some punks who had some unkind things to tweet at rugby star Neil Back.
Back allegedly cost team Munster its first tournament victory in 2002 in what was then the Heineken Cup thanks to “illegal use of hands.” So, as part of the ERCC marketing campaigns, Heineken and Rothco decided to resurrect the image that also included what appears to be Back’s phone number. Out came the wolves, followed by calls from Back’s “personal assistant” to several respondents saying there was a mix-up with a sportswriter’s number and offering them complimentary tickets to a Champions Cup game to be picked up at a local hotel.
While we won’t spoil what happens next in this cringeworthy but ultimately good-natured stunt, Rothco art director Paddy Thunder (his real name, apparently) explains its scope in a statement, saying:
“The amount of planning involved in this project surprised all of us. While the idea seemed relatively simple on paper initially, the amount of scenarios that we ended up having to plan for blew us away. For the initial Twitter ‘leak’ phase alone, over twenty possible scenarios were written up and planned for. What if two of the people we called back knew each other and tweeted that something fishy was going on? What if the level of abuse for Neil crossed the line? The list was endless, and that was before we even got to the hotel. Like with any idea though, entering the unknown is just a sign that you’re doing something new, which is what made the project so exciting to work on.”
Agency Rothco
Agency Producer: Jessica Derby
Art Director: Paddy Thunder
Copywriter: Connor O’Hare
Executive Creative Director: Alan Kelly
Strategy: MCCP
Account Director: Eva Nash
Account Manager: Susan Nelis
Production Company: Motherland
Director: Finn Keenan
Producer: Ellen Kenny
Executive Producer Ross Killeen
Social: Eric Gasparro
Post House: Motherland
Photographer: Piotr Dybowski
Digital: Rothco
Grade: Windmill Lane
Motion Graphics: John Cutler