Case Study: #carrythemhome

When KINC was approached by England Rugby last year to create social media excitement around the Rugby World Cup, the agency teamed up with Brit Award winning artist Ella Eyre to create a new rendition of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. The results? Six million online film views, the song reaching number two on iTunes video charts and a  40% increase of England Rugby’s page likes.

Campaign: #carrythemhome
Client: England Rugby
PR Team: KINC
Timing: September 2015

Overview

KINC was selected by England Rugby to design a fan engagement campaign based on England Rugby’s #carrythemhome hashtag, with a brief to create a social media buzz and add to the excitement of the Rugby World Cup.

Objectives

The aim of the campaign was to:

• Increase awareness, engagement and social conversation around #carrythemhome.
• Recruit new rugby fans while engaging existing fans.
• Generate mainstream media coverage.
• Increase England Rugby Facebook fans by 200,000 by the end of the RWC.
• Use content to achieve one million video views.

Strategy

KINC created a campaign for England Rugby to lead a nationwide search to crowd source voices for a new recording of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”.

The hashtag became the entry mechanic for people who wanted to be involved in the new release, which was the Official England Rugby single in 2015.

KINC created a partnership with Facebook to design a digital hub to enable fans to upload their renditions of the chorus to the song through Facebook or Instagram, using the hashtag.

It also facilitated a record label partnership with Virgin EMI to release the track and provide Brit Award winning artist Ella Eyre to lead the campaign. Through the recruitment of Facebook and Virgin EMI as partners, KINC tripled the RFU’s budget, maximising social media buzz.

The mutually beneficial arrangement gave Ella and England Rugby the platform to engage with new audiences (instantly increasing England Rugby’s new page likes by 40%) while the proceeds from a new recording of “Swing Low” went to a charity partner.

Throughout the campaign, KINC worked with England Rugby to create and release promotional videos such as “How to Enter” and “A History of Swing Low”, in order to maintain engagement levels. Media interest was generated around staggered PR spikes from the campaign launch, artist announcement and single release. This culminated with a 24 Hour Facebook exclusive music video launch on England Rugby and Ella Eyre’s Facebook pages before a full roll out onto all social channels.

Results

One hashtag, England Rugby’s #carrythemhome, was transformed into an integrated social media campaign that spawned a top trending subject across all of Facebook, 1.1 billion OTS on Twitter, 3.69 million OTS on Instagram, more than six million online film views (reaching number two on the iTunes video charts).

The campaign peaked with as much consumer use of #carrythemhome on opening night of the RWC than in the whole of the eight week long Six Nations tournament combined.

England Rugby Facebook fans increased from 1.3 million to 1.6 million by 1 November 2015, with more than 25,000 new fans being recruited the week the music video launched.

More than 200 pieces of press coverage were recorded, including eight broadcast TV pieces from the likes of Sky Sports News, ITV’s Good Morning Britain and BBC’s The One Show. Ella Eyre appeared on the front page of Evening Standard Magazine and YOU Magazine.

The Facebook competition app received 230,000 views on peoples’ entries and campaign videos generated six million views across Facebook and YouTube and the 24 hour Facebook music video launch exclusive resulted in three million views with a total reach of 15.5 million, becoming a top trending topic on the social media platform.

Got a cracking campaign – with impressive results – that you’d like to showcase? If so, please email [email protected].