A TV spot about sports inclusivity
by Choosing Diversity-GiANT Heart
In the framework of the course “Introduction to Advertising and Public Relations” of the Department of Communication, Media and Culture of Panteion University, each team was invited to create GiANT Heart’s Season 2 Campaign. Through this project, we had the opportunity to get familiarised with a company that already thrives and approach an agency, construct a campaign for them and gain feedback from them on how to further develop our ideas in furtherance of the best possible outcome.
GiANT Heart is a CSR program by Novibet that was invented in May 2021. Novibet is a Legal Company for betting based in Greece with competitive odds in all sports. Her CSR program, called “GiANT Heart”, concerns the implementation of a series of targeted Corporate Responsibility actions based on the values of social contribution, hope and second chance, which aim to improve the lives of many of our fellow human beings (Novibet). GiANT Heart has done a purposeful partnership with Giannis Antetokounmbo, and one of their actions was restoring sports grounds and facilities that need reconstruction and immediate maintenance. GiANT Heart and Giannis were also behind the temporary accommodation for wildfire victims in August 2021.
The above were some actions of their first project, and what we were invited to do was propose their season 2 campaign. Our team (Choosing Diversity) finds it an excellent opportunity to show the audience our values and goals, which match GiANT’s Heart, through this proposal. As a start-up, we aim to leave our mark on the importance of equal, diverse and inclusive environments, and that is precisely what became the core of our brainstorming process. We envisioned a campaign that would be direct to the audience, with a clear message so everyone can fathom the essentialness of acceptance and belonging. After many ideas, we managed to reach a decision and design a TV spot that would promote sports inclusivity. This concept could include all our values and standpoints while providing a high aesthetic result. A core point of this proposal is to interact with famous athletes directly and promote sports inclusivity and diversity. As for the concept, it will consist of 4 minutes in which athletes from marginalised groups will answer the same question: « How did you manage to overcome the obstacles created by people’s misconceptions in your sports career? ». We choose this question of broad interest since we want to set an example and provide the audience with a hopeful and encouraging point of view. After deliberating many suggestions, we concluded that our goal would be met if we gave space to certain people. The following Promo Line will accompany the TV spot: «We all belong», as we understand that the meaning of a DEI (Diversity-Equality-Inclusion) campaign can be contained within the significance of the term belonging.
As mentioned before, famous athletes will participate in the video. We decided that the following ones represent some of the vulnerable communities that have a strong presence in sports. We strongly believe that they are a great example of why everyone belongs on the athletic field and that this could be raised on a social level in order to crush any type of discrimination.
There will be five athletes among which the main ambassador will be Giannis Antetokounmbo. Giannis and his family are immigrants from Nigeria and have a low-income background. He is an MVP player and one of the most decorated athletes in the NBA. His stellar success makes him the best ambassador for us. Giannis will represent male, immigrant athletes with similar backgrounds, values and goals. Our next athlete is Evina Maltsi, captain of Greece’s women’s national basketball team and one of the most successful women athletes in basketball. She is part of the WNBA and will represent females in sports facilities. Nasos Gavelas, who won the gold medal in the Paralympics in Tokyo 2021 will be the third athlete on the TV spot and will stand for athletes with disabilities and rare diseases. Nasos is a successful spreeder who from an early age was diagnosed with Stargardt’s gene-disease which led to a gradual loss of its vision. LGBTQ+ community will be represented by Lia Thomas, a trans-American swimmer who was the first openly transgender NCAA Division winner in 2022. Lia was in the men’s team in 2019–2020 and then in 2021–2022, she was part of the women’s team. Although she has faced intolerance and has been questioned about whether she belongs to the women’s team, she manages to be a highly awarded athlete that flourishes every time she dives into the pool and to become an example for the trans community that struggles to fit into stereotypical settings. Our last athlete is called Arash. Arash will represent refugees as he is an Afghanistan and Iraq refugee. He is a wrestling athlete and part of a refugee sports group. Although he has been rejected for the previous Olympics due to his refugee status, he aims to take part in the Olympic Games 2024. His patience and persistence in his goals, along with the hard work that he commits are exemplary and crush any bias that follows the refugees.
As for the technical details we managed to elaborate on many ideas that mirror our aesthetic point of view while it serves the core points of a successful tv spot. The video will be separated into three parts: the opening scene, the main and the final. In the first scene, there will be the introduction of the Question and the answers that the athletes will provide will follow in the main part. Giannis Antetokounmbo will be the first to answer and then the other ones will follow. There shall be a constant alteration of each speaker, to join some of the given answers and give the atmosphere of continuous connection. In the final scene, the screen will be divided into five parts and Giannis will be at the centre of it with a bigger frame to underline his role as an ambassador. All the athletes will say the Promo Line “We all belong” with a delay to give the element of echo. Following that, all the images will fade away apart from Giannis who will close the spot by saying “We all belong powered by Novibet ‘’.
The following details that we came up with in order to embody our values and highlight our creativity are what make our suggestion to GiANTheart unique. The spot will have a black and white intensity and at the end of it, there will be the promo line with novibet and GiANT Heart’s logos. The whole video will be subtitled in various translations to include deaf audiences. The TV spot will appear on TV, on social media, on posters and at athletic events, as we believe that its length and topic is relevant to all aforementioned platforms. One possible activation of the campaign would be to set up an event when the new sports field will have been renovated and restored. In this event, the athletes that participate in the video will be invited and have the chance to make speeches in order to motivate the audience. In this way, we can combine both the first and second GiANT’s Heart campaigns.
In order for this campaign to be successful we need to conduct a risk assessment, bear in mind all the possible challenges that may arise and be confident that we have solutions that could be directly implemented to any of the following circumstances. Firstly, it’s known that approaching Lia Thomas will be quite challenging since she is living in America. Also, we can’t forget the filming budget combined with the high-quality montage and the completion of another brand’s new campaign. Additionally, there will always be unexpected events along the way and unfortunately, we can’t confirm the participation of all athletes.
To make a long story short, we believe that Novibet through GiANT’s heart campaign is an extraordinary opportunity to promote the DEI model of marketing. As we view the athletic field as a reflection of our society we strongly believe that it should be a place of belonging for everyone, thus we found great meaning in constructing a project that promotes such a mentality and at the same time be fruitful for Novibet’s identity.
On our social media channels and website you can also find usesul infos about the collaboration : Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Website
