Case study: How one little pen got noticed by 230 million households by hijacking the Ashes
The oldest and fiercest rivalry in World Cricket, ‘The Ashes’, was being fought in Australia over summer 2010/11. The broadcast reached 230 million households. Artline wanted a presence but didn’t have anywhere near the budget necessary to be involved. Any guerrilla activity would need to run the gauntlet of security, exclusion zones and big brands.
GPY&R Sydney created a character called Arthur Line (Art Line for short) who infiltrated matches as a humble cartoonist armed with nothing more than an Artline pen and some paper. Arthur’s commentary, insight and penmanship soon had the crowd, players and even the broadcaster on side.
Arthur’s work was picked up by the Channel 9 TV broadcast which reached 230 million households in 7 continents. The commentators made special mention of him, giving Artline a level of brand awareness way beyond our nominal investment of a few tickets and Arthur’s time.
Arthur’s now a regular at the cricket, and the cameras love his work!
14 Comments
Cracking idea – well done!
what a waste of time
Wasn’t going to comment – until I saw the first comment. One mention on TV and a whopping 79 likes on the facebook. wow.
Guys, take a look at the Honest T story. That’s how you do it.
9:19 is sippin’ some Hater-ade with his Honest T
Saw some Hasselhoff stuff on tele. Thats pretty good publicity for a couple of hundred bucks.
Gives scam a bad name!
I watched a lot of the Ashes.
Didn’t see this bloke though.
10.47
How do you scam channel 9? I watched it, I saw him. Cool idea.
Doesn’t seem like a scam to me. Just seems like a client who doesn’t insist on branding the fuck out of everything.
Confirmed when I saw more caricatures in the sports section of the paper, with just a link to the Artline facebook page at the bottom of them.
Scam?
there is always the usual spineless idiots who take a cheap shot at an good idea but don’t have the balls to put their name to it.
well done lads.
I think this is wonderful.
Approach is fresh and innovative.
these guys are thinking outside of the box and i look forward to more..
Im with Matthew – wow there are some bitter bitter creatives out there that are being eaten up by darkness and ego.
“the Channel 9 TV broadcast which reached 230 million households in 7 continents”
What a load of shite.
They forgot to connect it all to the brand.
Otherwise, “brilliant!”…