As BT entered their seventh season in the battle for football audiences, their main rival Sky Sports continued to be considered the home of LIVE football.
Our challenge was to take on and defeat BT Sport’s fiercest competitors in the contest for subscriptions. Given BT Sport in 2019 held exclusive rights to the Champions League Live matches, we needed to inspire the football community to talk about nothing other than BT Sport’s new season. The catch? Spend 75% less than the previous season.
The beautiful game is remarkably unpredictable and season after season the Champion’s League has been the ultimate spectacle for football fans all over the world - the agony, the ecstasy, the incredible highs and the unbearable lows. Over and over, live football proves completely unpredictable. You just couldn’t write it…or could you?
We revealed Unscripted, a campaign based on a script for the new football season. Written using AI and in collaboration with BT, our team commissioned the biggest brains in sports data, analytics and machine learning to write the first AI-inspired script of any football season anywhere on the planet.
Before a single ball had been kicked we fuelled the debate among players, pundits, and most importantly the fans themselves, proving that while you can’t always script football, you can most definitely watch it live on BT Sport.
The Unscripted campaign resulted in a tremendous amount of coverage all over the world, gaining 137 million media impressions across 44 countries.
But the most inspiring outcome was that Unscripted grew subscriptions for BT Sport like never before, signing up an incredible 100% more fans than the previous season.
2021 Cannes Lions
Brand Storytelling, Entertainment for Sport
Gold
2021 Cannes Lions
Direct, Use of Social Platforms
Silver
2021 Cannes Lions
Creative Data, Data-enhanced Creativity
Bronze
2019 Epica
Recreation & Leisure
Gold
2020 D&AD
PR
Yellow Pencil
2020 The One Show
Recreation & Leisure
Gold
2020 The One Show
Integrated/Innovation in Integrated Branding
Merit
2020 Eurobest
Best Use of Creative Data
Gold
2020 DMA
Best in Show
Grand Prix
2020 DMA
Best Customer Acquisition Campaign
Gold
2020 DMA
Sports
Gold
2020 DMA
Best Use of Social Media
Gold
2020 DMA
Best Creative Solution
Gold
2020 DMA
Best Data Storytelling
Silver
2021 Webby Awards
Best Social Community Building & Engagement
