Rio Olympic Rugby 7’s

The Challenge:
Fiji had never won a medal at any Olympic Games and were suddenly the favourites to win Gold at the Rio Olympics in the 7’s Rugby. As a result, Fiji Airways wanted to drive awareness of their sponsorship of the Fiji National Rugby 7’s team. Unfortunately, Fiji Airways didn’t have an Olympic Sponsorship Agreement and the list of advertising restrictions and penalties imposed by the IOC for non-sponsors leading up to and during the Olympics is long and severe.

The Solution:
With an extremely tight turn-around, we needed an ambush marketing strategy to create a range of content and print executions that associated Fiji Airways with rugby, and all within the IOC guidelines. Timing and media became integral to making sure that Fijians would make the right connection between Fijian Rugby and Fiji Airways.

The Idea:
We knew all of Fiji would be focused on their one shot at a medal, the Fijian Rugby 7’s team. We then used rugby vernacular and applied it to aviation and were able to drive awareness of Fiji Airways support for the national team in a unique and inspiring way.

Results:
With social media alone we were able to reach a staggering 37% of Fijians, generating 328,000 unique Facebook views.