Powerade brings the legends to footy fans with influencer Q&As

The Holden State of Origin is an annual event for the National Rugby League (NRL), regularly pulling the number one spot on free-to-air television. The series of 3 games between Queensland (the Maroons) and New South Wales (the Blues) unites sports fans across the country. Coca-Cola’s Powerade brand (@poweradeau) is a partner of the NRL, and wanted to leverage the relationship to connect with footy fans.

Powerade (@poweradeau) was keen to tap into recent innovations in Twitter technology to provide die-hard NRL supporters with exclusive access to the State of Origin heroes. Using Conversational Video Ads, footy fans could declare their allegiance and share a tailored support video with the hashtags #uptheblues or #QLDER. Popular State of Origin players, Aaron Woods (@aaronwoods11) and Sam Thaiday (@samthaiday) personally answered fans’ questions using the Twitter Q&A app. Twitter Australia’s Blue Room was converted into the Maroon Room to host Powerade brand ambassador Billy Slater (@billyslater) on Twitter using SnappyTV. The brand extended the reach of some video answers using Promoted Video. @poweradeau used event targeting to reach users interested in the State of Origin event, and keyword targeting to reach NRL fans.

@poweradeau was thrilled with the results of the campaign. The brand test-drove some of Twitter’s latest solutions. The Conversational Video Ads earned 915 user Tweets which sent out using the #uptheblues and #QLDER hashtag buttons. Brand ambassadors answered 70 user-submitted questions, generating 171,000 impressions. Promoted Videos gained an average engagement rate of over 33%. The brand credits its success to using several Twitter tools that supported various video creatives and worked seamlessly together to boost the impact of the whole campaign.