Mastercard. Master of Priceless moments. At the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan – the biggest sporting event on the global calendar that year – Mastercard worked to give fans and players once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
How did they do it? Over 44 days, 48 matches and 12 venues; leveraging Mastercard’s technology and consumer-first mindset; all the while making fans a major part of the action?
The answer: The Mastercard Live Trophy.
We brought together global rugby fans, Japanese design and live storytelling to capture every unique game of the tournament. We live-etched the priceless moments onto the trophy in each stadium and gifted it to the Player of the Match, seconds after the final whistle.
The Live Trophy memorialized the best on-field game moments as felt by fans and ceremoniously presented these to the hero of the game in live broadcast. The fan engagement, top comments and spikes of activity were paired to the Official Broadcast commentary using voice AI to capture the commentators’ powerful prose and matched fans passion through a bespoke social listening API. This allowed us to laser etch the priceless moments of the game onto the metal Player of the Match trophy.
Campaign goals? The Mastercard Live Trophy pushed consumer engagement through the stadium roof, increased brand awareness way beyond the touchline and showcased Mastercard as the innovative brand, capable of leveraging marquee assets like their Player of The Match Trophy and using it to exceed all expectations. And while it’s an asset that aligns Mastercard with the pinnacle of performance, we knew the reward should be gifted from the fans themselves.
Fans and athletes both loved the creation of the revolutionary trophy, they saluted the POTM and widely shared the behind-the-scenes content – because this trophy was made by them in an instant and commemorated each match forever.
We combined the power of live sports entertainment, digital media buying and real-time storytelling to immerse fans around the world into every match, keeping Mastercard in the hearts and minds of people across the whole tournament.
Mastercard created Live Trophies at 45 matches in 12 stadiums across 6 weeks earning the attention of fans, players and the media alike. We drove incredible conversation around Mastercard’s technology prowess, all to help get fans closer to the priceless moments they love.
Our results were spectacular. We increased brand awareness with an 80% share of voice amongst RWC Worldwide sponsors. We saw 3.06 billion cumulative reach across social and broadcast, including 45 million video views, and earned more than $3.7M of media due to the innovative execution and real-time storytelling – a 50% lower CPV than the benchmark.
Earned media mentions were six times higher than the Worldwide Partner Average. And as for consumers, the trophy generated reach of over 47 million via 547 press placements with 470.5 million interactions on posts promoting Mastercard across six weeks. The Live Trophy scored second and third for most shared tournament hashtags.
Our seven global influencers pushed us further. 3.7 million organic impressions and 84.9k total engagements – a social media value exceeding the target by 206.5%. And we got a trophy for ourselves. Mastercard / Octagon was awarded a Bronze Lion in the Fan Engagement category of the Entertainment in Sport category for the Live Trophy presented by Mastercard.