How Coca-Cola is engaging its Nigerian EPL fans with ‘Banter Better’ campaign
Deployed to gain a sizeable chunk of mindshare among Nigerian football fans, Coca-Cola is making the most of its sponsorship of the English Premier League with an integrated campaign currently running in the country. The campaign was created and implemented by the soft drinks’ marketing partners on the continent, including FCB, Isobar, Dentsu, Ogilvy Nigeria, Town Criers and R&B Public Relations. It broke in Nigeria in December 2019 with a TVC tagged “Banter Better with Coca-Cola”.
The integrated campaign is featuring a TVC, social executions, PR, out-of-home, shopper activations and customer partnerships, which speaks directly to the passion of the fans, who constantly banter with each other about the league, the teams, the performances and the statistics.
The TVC which opens with the question “What’s Football Without Banter?” and ends with “Banter Beter With Coca-Cola” is specifically created to engage the numerous EPL fans in Nigeria in a refreshing and unexpected manner to ensure they would ‘offer Coca-Cola a seat at their table’ during this year’s season.
According to the company’s IMC Director, Monali Shah, “In Nigeria, football is not just a game, it is a way of life,” she said. “The fans here live the EPL seven days a week, not just on match days. Coca-Cola wanted to honour these fans and their passion for the game every day, not just during the 90 minutes of play.”
“The big task to the agency was to ensure that the brand stood out in the sea of EPL communications and to create a campaign that resonated with the fans and invited Coca-Cola to become part of their conversations,” she explained.
After visiting Nigeria to uncover consumer insights first hand, ‘Banter Better with Coca-Cola’ was conceived and fine-tuned.
The TVC driving the campaign was created by FCB’s team of executive creative director Suhana Gordhan, copywriter Mbeu ‘Snooze’ Kambuwa and art director Jonathan Wolberg with collaboration from designers Liana Liebenberg and Thabang Lehobye.
According to Gordhan, the insights informing the creative approach are grounded in West African fans’ special relationship with the league’s clubs.
“The key difference between a West African fans’ relationship with the club they support and that of a fan in the UK is ‘choice’. In the UK, you don’t choose your club, you are born into it. For this reason, if someone disrespects your football club, they disrespect your place of birth, your home, your family. As a result, there’s an aggressive, territorial undertone to football banter and discussions.
“By contrast, in West Africa, they choose who they support, and are drawn to a club by its popularity and performance. Banter is, therefore, friendly and sporting – a passion point. What’s more, banter, in the West African EPL context, brings people together. Never aggressive, it is a way of good-naturedly sharing your knowledge of the game, and building anticipation for the coming weekend’s battles on the pitch.
“And yeah, while what happens on the pitch is fair banter fodder, that’s where the battle stays on the pitch,” Gordhan explained.
The film advertisement was created by FCB Nigeria for Coca-Cola within the Non-Alcoholic Drinks category.
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