How X3M Ideas integrates traditional with new media in Ighalo DSTV campaign

The DSTV campaign featuring Nigerian football Star, Odion Ighalo, recently released by X3M Ideas offers a lesson on how to integrate traditional and digital advertising to drive campaigns with a single-minded message running through the various executions. The campaign is aimed at demystifying the belief that DSTV product offerings are expensive. X3M Ideas as the DSTV agency on record in the campaign ignored the hackneyed and commonplace ‘price change ad”.
 
The agency chose to tell the real life story with the tag #Liveyourdream. The narrative tells a moving as well as a captivating story of one of the current biggest Nigeria’s exports to the football world, Ighalo, a striker and Watford FC goal poacher in the English Premier League.

The TVC opens with Ighalo telling his own story, how he started out from the slums of Maracana field, Ajegunle, but he did not allow his background and the slum area to deter him. He had a dream and he did all he could to make it a reality. Now he is scoring goals in premiership. The story vividly drives home the import of the campaign theme – #LiveYourDream.

The Live Your Dream campaign celebrates the passion, perseverance and determination of Nigerians to achieve their dreams against all odds and the Ighalo’s story provides a perfect real life parallel, which makes the campaign relatable and believable too.

The Live Your Dream campaign vividly displays Ighalo’s consistent rise from the streets of Ajegunle to the Premiership League. This was expertly drilled down and synchronized with the objectives of the campaign, which includes growing the revamped DStv Compact package that now offers more value with two new SuperSport channels – SuperSport 11 (231) and SuperSport 12 (232) both dedicated to showcasing the Premier League and La Liga respectively.
 
The target audience for the campaign perfectly blends with Ighalo’s fans and it shares his demonstrable passion for the game. So, when the lead cast delivers his line in the commercial as follows, “My journey to Premier League started from this Maracana field …I wasn’t always the superstar striker that you know today. For any goal scored, there were many missed. When I was young, watching football stars helped keep my dream alive… Standing up anytime I failed, thanks to the support from my mum, my family and you the fans. You’ve been there to watch me learn and grow. I went from setting goals and achieving them…”, he talks realistically and inspires his admirers.  
 
This very tight 60” commercial did not fail to accommodate frames showing the football star’s humble background, environment and his mother’s role in encouraging him to forge ahead. It tells a story in possibility and having the right attitude to become a better individual to #LiveYourDream and “be a better you”.

One striking feature of the campaign is seamless fusion of the traditional TVC with digital aspect of the campaign. To achieve this synergy, the agency set up a simple, easy to navigate micro site aimed at bringing the #LiveYourDream concept to live in an interactive way.  Influencers are deployed to drive relevant traffic to the site where visitor are required to upload their pictures, choose an inspiring quote on living your dreams out of the so many built into the site. A participant can do this in simple steps and thereafter share the picture with the any of the embedded quotes with their friends on their social media platforms. Participants with the highest number of likes stand the chance of winning SuperSports headphones. This has been attracting thousands of visitors to the site.

Apart from the TVC and digital which are the lead drivers, the #LiveYourDream campaign equally finds expression in print and out-of-home.  The last two modes of executions hinge largely on the ‘export’ slant of lead cast. Simple copy headlines such as “From Ajegunle to the World”, “From Setting Goals to Scoring Them” further highlight the campaign theme as reinforced by the TVC and digital materials.