THE BRIEF

Operating as Xbox’s football activation agency, DSM was tasked with creating a campaign around the Women’s European Championships in 2022 as part of their official gaming partnership with England. In line with Xbox’s tagline ‘Power Your Dreams’, DSM devised an engaging activation, intertwining both football and gaming to showcase the partnership of the two iconic brands. This was done through a day of fan engagement and content capture, simplifying the content around a key tournament.

THE APPROACH

We ideated and developed a concept to power the dreams of aspiring junior female footballers, from FC Mortons, by inviting them to St. Georges Park (SGP), the home of England football, for a ‘money can’t buy’ experience.

To kick off the campaign, DSM brokered commercial deals with two of England’s Women’s players, Ellen White and Lucy Staniforth, to spearhead the content and provide a special, surprise moment for the young footballers who had no idea they would be there.

But the fun didn’t end there, the girls from FC Mortons spent the rest of the day with the two Lionesses, showing off their impressive footballing ability in Xbox branded football activity, using the iconic controller buttons and brand IP to create a skill and shooting challenge.

Then it was time to switch from the real world to the virtual world, with a Minecraft challenge taken on by the England internationals with the girls supporting either ‘Team Ellen’, or ‘Team Lucy’.

After a fun filled day of football and gaming there was time for one last surprise, Lauren Layfield, the presenter for the day, revealed that Xbox would be gifting a £25,000 sponsorship fund for FC Mortons to help continue to power the dreams of the club’s participants.

DSM worked with a production partner to ensure there were multiple cameras across the day to capture the reactions and interviews with the players, junior footballers and managers of FC Mortons. This provided a plethora of engaging content to create a multi-edit, multi-channel, digital content campaign spanning across Xbox, Xbox UK, England and Lioness platforms.

To further amplify the content, DSM negotiated a media partnership deal with 433 who joined on the day to create their own bespoke content. This content was pushed out through the 433WomenFC Instagram channel with support from the main 433 account, along with a highly engaged competition to win a bespoke England designed Xbox.

The content was released strategically ahead of the Women’s Euros in June 2022, resulting in strong engagement rates and exposure for Xbox.