Play

A demonstration of

• > Activation
• > Active Engagement
• > Earned
• > Paid
• > Partnership / Sponsorship
• > Research / ROI

Specsavers: An eye for expertise

In hindsight, the best ideas just seem so obvious. In the face of competition from new online and high street retailers MEC spotted an opportunity to help Specsavers underline their credentials in optical expertise. The thing was, it hadn’t been done before…

The challenge

With the advent of opticians in every major supermarket and the rise of internet players like glassesdirect.co.uk, Specsavers' new challenge for 2009 was to reinforce the perceptions of their brand as experts and professionals in the optical field.

Our insight

We set out to do something different. Our idea was to create a link between Specsavers and the visual technology behind the big sporting decisions. The Ashes were shaping up to be a huge event and along with Sky we set about creating a sponsorship package linking Specsavers to the 'Hawkeye' technology.  Hawkeye is a computer system regularly used in cricket and tennis to track the path of the ball's movement - even predicting onward movement in for instance 'leg before wicket' decisions. Our idea positioned the brand alongside an innovative and accurate visual technology - virtually zero margin for error!

Our solution

This had never been done before - Hawkeye did not exist in a sponsorable format.  We knew that this was a great idea but we also knew making it happen would be challenging. Working together with Sky and the Hawkeye team, we set about creating a bespoke solution, which resulted in viewers seeing the Specsavers logo prominently displayed on screen for 4 or 5 seconds on every Hawkeye transmission over the whole Ashes series including one day internationals and Twenty20 matches.

The results

Specsavers received c.17 exposures per day of play equating to an equivalent delivery of over 875 ABC1 Men TVRs. The sponsorship reached nearly 8 million viewers and delivered impressive airtime value at a ratio of 5:1 compared to traditional TV advertising costs. It also generated widespread PR with Charles Sale in the Daily Mail commenting on this partnership: "apt indeed after the eyesight of hapless umpire Rudi Koertzen was regularly in question during the third test!"