Sportal unveiled its first ever TV advertising campaign on Sunday May 7. The campaign, the first ever UK national campaign for a sports internet company, broke during ITV’s live coverage of the F1 Grand Prix of Barcelona. It was followed by coverage in the half time break of the live Premiership clash between Liverpool and Southampton on Sky Sports 1.
It will run on both terrestrial and satellite television stations until the Kick-off of EURO2000s, of which Sportal is one of the official sponsors.
The creative, named ‘It’s a ball!’ stars National Team Coach, Kevin Keegan and features the key line ‘Sport on the internet delivered by professionals.’
‘For our first creative treatment we wanted to reinforce our brand positioning of being the pro’s choice.’ Says Andrew Croker, Sportals Head of Sport. ‘But it was also important to approach it with a sense of humour.’
Jens Hertzun of Bruce Dunlop and Associates wrote and directed the spot, Creative Director was Bruce Dunlop, while Damon Reeve of Branded, Sportals’ appointed Marketing Agency, oversaw the campaign development.
The campaign will roll out internationally this week with spots booked in Germany, Italy and France. With Germany set to meet England in EURO 2000TM as well as in the 2002 World Cup, Kevin Keegan made a natural choice to star in the campaign building upon his high profile in both countries.
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For further information please contact:
Mark Thursfield:
Tel: 0207 350 4825
e-mail: mark.thursfield@sportal.net
or Kevin O’Reilly
Tel: 0207 820 9911
e-mail: korielly@bell-pottinger.co.uk
About Sportal
Sportal is the leading independent global provider of interactive sports content. It creates, manages, promotes and commercialises websites, either in partnership with major sports entities or under its own brand names.
Sportal’s headquarters are in London and the company has offices in Paris, Milan, Madrid, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Munich, Melbourne, Sydney, Cape Town, Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur and employs over 220 people.
The Sportal Network includes the official website for EURO2000s, Euro2000.org, Sportal is also one of the 12 top-line sponsors of the tournament. Other official sites include Juventus (juventus.it), AC Milan(acmilan.com), AC Parma (acparma.it), Paris Saint-Germain (psg.fr) and Bayern Munich (fcbayern.de), among others. The official Real Madrid site launches this month. Sportal operates multi sport sites at Sportal.co.uk, Sportal.fr, Sportal.de, Sportal.it, Sportal.es, Sportal.se, Sportal.dk, Sportal.com.au and launching soon are Sortal.co.za and Sportal Asia.
Single sport sites include Scrum.com, the worlds premier Rugby Union site and benettonf1.com, the official Benetton F1 team site. Sportal recently launched multi language WAP services, joining the broadband football and rugby content supplied to digital cable platforms.
Sportal creates sites with compelling content and leading-edge functionality and features. The Sportal Network provides a global technological and commercial infrastructure, enabling Sportal’s partners to benefit from economies of scale in technology and software development, and provides international advertisers and commercial partners with access to targeted audiences.
Sportal sites are; Sportal.co.uk Sportal.fr Sportal.de Sportal.it Sportal.es, Sportal.se, Sportal.dk, Sportal.com.au and is launching Sportal.co.za and Sportal Asia.
Sportal partner sites are; euro2000.org juventus.com psg.fr acmilan.com acparma.it fcbayern.de realmadrid.es rcdmallorca.es fck.de sporting.pt scrum.com benettonf1.com mv-r.com asian-football.com sarugby.net pgatour.com.au ladieseuropeantour.com malaysiaopen.com asianpgatour.com asianbasketball.com basketligan.se stormers.com thecats.co.za thebulls.co.za haandboldligaen.dk hockeyligan.se hockeyasia.com viccricket.com.au
For further information please contact:
Mark Thursfield
Tel: 0207 350 4825
e-mail: mark.thursfield@sportal.net
or
Kevin O’Reilly
Tel:0207 820 9911
e-mail: korielly@bell-pottinger.co.uk