The coin toss is a symbol of fair chance at the start of every game, but no official coin has ever existed! Until now…
Nationwide Building Society and England Football have partnered and pledged to ensure 1 million players, parents and coaches get involved with the FA Respect campaign by 2023.
To support the initiative Hatch were tasked with creating a campaign that would raise awareness of the partnership, help spread the message of mutual respect on and off the pitch and engage with the target audience.
This led to the idea to launch a national competition to design the first ever Coin for Respect. The creative challenge called on children aged 3-17yrs across the UK to design a unique coin to become a symbol of mutual respect at the start of each grassroots game.
We split the campaign into four distinct stages, Competition Launch, Submissions, Shortlisting & Voting and Coin Launch. Each stage saw different elements come together to ensure the campaign received maximum exposure within the world of sport and wider media.
As part of the partnership, Nationwide Building Society had access to players and legends of the game which Hatch needed to utilise to meet the overall aims of the campaign.
Here’s how it went…
Stage 1: Competition Launch
To launch the competition to the nation Hatch enlisted the help of England footballing legends David James and Karen Carney to produce a video outlining what the campaign was.
We also worked with England stars Jordan Knobbs, Beth Mead, Tyrone Mings and Nick Pope to create image assets and pitch interviews to help get cut through in national media and generate significant awareness.
This resulted in 21 pieces of coverage including Good Morning Britain, The Metro, Sky Sports News, The Telegraph and The Independent.
Stage 2: Submission Drive
Once the competition was out there, the challenge was on to enough high-quality entries for a shortlist of designs that we could put to a public vote.
Our big focus here was on getting the campaign in front of as many children and families as possible.
The Hatchlings used the assets and ambassadors available to them, as well as various strategies, from a partnership with children’s title First News, to writing bespoke releases for local media in areas of high school concentration to get it in front of as many eyes as possible.
On top of this, Hatch worked with various MPs, utilising their relationships with schools and children’s groups within their constituencies as well as creating assets packs and a briefing sheet which was sent to every school in the country.
This outreach resulted in 100’s of high-quality entries from across the UK!
Stage 3: Shortlist & Voting
Following the hugely successful launch of the Coin for Respect campaign and the big push on submissions, it was important that we continued momentum into the shortlist and voting stages.
We worked with several ambassadors including David James, Jordan Knobbs, Beth Mead, Rebecca Welch and Jeff Brazier to select our 11 shortlisted entries that would be put to a public vote.
Once we had our shortlist, we worked on getting as much coverage as possible to ensure the public knew about the designs and could have their say on which design was their favourite.
To generate awareness of the voting stage, we worked with David, Rebecca, Jordan and Beth to secure interviews with national media resulting in significant coverage in broadcast, online and print titles.
Hatch also worked with all 11 shortlisted children to build a bank of assets they could use to run their own campaign, and to generate as many votes as possible for each shortlisted child, we outreached bespoke regional press releases and secured interviews for each entrant.
All this activity helped us achieve more than 10,000 votes for the shortlisted entries as well as 185 pieces of coverage with a reach of over 500m!
Our eventual winner was Chloe from Wallington, Surrey whose design aimed to show that everyone should be able to take part in football and be treated equally, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, or any other characteristics:
Stage 4: Winner Announcement and Coin Launch
The final stage culminated in the winning design being mass produced and distributed to 15,000 grassroots referees, footballing legends and influential figures within the game.
To launch the coin, we organised an event at Wallington FC (the local club of our winner) to host the first official Coin for Respect match, where the coin was used for the very first time.
The game was refereed by Grassroots Match Official of the Year, Ella Broad and the teams were treated to a training session from campaign ambassador David James. The Hatch content team captured the event for a final video that was used across Nationwide Building Society and England Football’s social media channels, as well as organising a photographer to capture images for media outreach.
Hatch also organised interviews for Chloe, David and Ella with local and national media to promote the campaign and showcase the winning coin.
Final Results
Overall, the campaign was hugely successful securing coverage with a whole host of national and regional titles across print, broadcast and online. The content produced featured across multiple channels and drove significant engagement on Nationwide and England Football’s channels.
But above all the Coin for Respect is now being used by grassroots referees across the country, meaning it’s left a legacy on the game of football for generations of players and fans to experience.
To speak to us about how to maximise your PR in the world of sport or sponsorship, drop us an email at hello@hatch.co.uk
