While last year’s BT Sport ad featured England footballer Dele Alli switching between stadium settings to try his hand at rugby, cricket and boxing, "Heroes", created by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, follows schoolgirl Charlotte dashing out her house and darting around her neighbourhood in order to take on and defeat sports stars including Alli, Gareth Bale, Jesse Lingard, Johanna Konta and Sam Warburton.
It was created by Mike Crowe and Rob Messeter and directed by Fredrik Bond through Sonny, while the media agency is Essence. The campaign launches on TV tomorrow (1 August) and will be supported by online video, outdoor, print, radio, cinema and social media.
It is the third in a trio of ads that BT’s chief brand and marketing officer Zaid Al-Qassab said were intended to "add a touch of magic" to the brand’s communications. Each of the three is soundtracked by a chart classic, with Connection – well known as the theme from Trigger Happy TV – following on from Madness’s It Must Be Love and New Order’s Blue Monday.
The new ad is "all about celebrating the latest sport we’ve got", BT consumer marketing director Dan Ramsay told ±±¾©Èü³µpk10. "The best way to do that is to bring it into everyday life."
He said the choice to make the protagonist a girl "made the story more interesting – we didn’t want to fall into any typical stories about men watching sport".
It emerged yesterday (30 July) that after walking away from a bidding contest. It also lost the rights to Serie A, Italy’s top football division, earlier this month.
But Ramsay pointed to where the platform had increased its coverage: more Premier League games than last season; more Champions’ League matches broadcast thanks to the group stage being divided into 6pm and 8pm kick-offs; and the full rights to European Rugby, which BT previously had partial rights to.
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