Chhavi Tyagi
Advertising

The Sports Bar saves fun from dying

The Sports Bar launched an on-ground campaign, Save Fun, to announce its Corporate Bailout Package in Gurgaon and Bengaluru

While the world sinks deeper into the economic crisis, more and more people are opting to stay at home rather than spend their precious monies on a night out. This, in turn, is making people on the other side miserable – the hotel and bar owners. In order to ease their plight, these businesses are coming out with massive discounts. However, one place is getting its message across in a different way.

The Sports Bar, a unit of the Future Group, announced a special Corporate Bailout Package, wherein visiting consumers will get any domestic beverage under Rs 99. However, The Sports Bar did not just announce the package, the unit executed an entire campaign on the theme with a heavy tilt towards on-ground.

The campaign, called Save Fun, is being executed in three phases in Delhi and Bengaluru. Phase 1 started on April 3 with a teaser activity. Conceptualised by Onads Communications and executed by Fountainhead Promotions and Events, the campaign had mime artists staging street plays at select locations in Delhi and Bengaluru. The idea was to communicate that the current economic scenario was squeezing fun out of their lives and that something had to be done to “save fun from dying”.

The Sports Bar saves fun from dying
The Sports Bar saves fun from dying
The Sports Bar saves fun from dying
Ranjith Rajasekharan, senior vice-president, Leisure and Entertainment, Future Group, says, “Corporates are going through tough times and therefore, we thought of releasing a corporate bailout package. Instead of just doing a simple announcement, we thought of presenting it in an entertaining way. The brief was to come out with a strong creative project in order to bond well with our target group, who are now forced to think twice before spending their money.”

Along with the street acts, a woman dressed in a nurse’s uniform also accompanied the team, ‘nursing fun’ (a 3D cut out of the word). Having aroused curiosity, the team was back after three days in the same areas with the revealer. The mime artists paraded down the same streets with placards in their hands, saying 'The Sports Bar has Saved Fun' and 'Cheers to The Sports Bar'.

As a final act, the unit is holding a launch party tonight for the special package.

Jignesh Maniar, founder, Onads Communications, says, “The Sports Bar wanted to do a marketing promotion – but something different from the rest of the businesses, which were simply going in for 40-50 per cent discounts. Also, it wanted something which took the global recession into account. We kept both the things in mind and came out with the concept of fun dying and from there on, everything fell into place.”

To leverage the Internet savvy consumers, The Sports Bar has also created a community on the social networking site, Facebook. In addition, a mix of other media such as radio, PR and in-store promotions have also been used to promote the campaign.

However, The Sports Bar will continue with its regular offerings such as the VH 1 Karaoke Night every Friday and MTV Saturday Night Live.

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