At the core, Spond is the name behind a sports coaching app that allows instructors to seamlessly organise team activities by having all the essential management tools in one place. Working with Pan Communications, they wanted to bring attention to the challenges coaches in grassroots sports face on a day-to-day basis, as their efforts go unappreciated and often overlooked. Especially when eight million people in Britain enjoy grassroots sports every week. This newly created video content would be used to supplement a wider campaign, #ThanksAMillionCoach.
Our Approach
With the idea that these were to primarily be published across various social media platforms, we wanted to create something ‘real’, which would resonate with coaches and grassroots sport participants around the country. It would also have to capture the attention of the viewer within the first 5 seconds, and equally be subtitled for maximum inclusivity.
With the knowledge that we were able to secure time with a local youth football team (with crucial parental consent), we created a rough script, shotguide and storyboard to make the most out of the 2 hour training session that we had access to. This pre-production, collaborative process was necessary to ensure that all parties were on the same page at every step of the way.
As mentioned, what was filmed was a ‘real’ training session. We had specific scenes in mind which required the coach to perform certain actions, however striving for authenticity, the training session was filmed with a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ approach. And so this required equipment that allowed us to be mobile, agile and reactive to what happened on the pitch.
The Result
The videos created helped spearhead the campaign across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, reaching 100k+ views across Facebook alone. Following the hashtag #ThanksAMillionCoach, individuals also tagged their coaches in sharing the love and appreciation for all their efforts, helping reach maximum engagement.
The success of this campaign also led to Spond donating £20k+ to UK charity, StreetGames to reaffirm their values as a brand in supporting the grassroots sports scene.
