When Vodafone became the official sponsor of the Irish rugby team, they became the 23rd company to be associated with the team in a sponsorship capacity. The brief was clear – Vodafone needed to behave differently to stand out in a busy landscape. We set out to create the most interconnected team and fanbase on the planet. Why? Because you shout louder for someone you know. To do this, we had to show the humans behind the superhumans. In doing so, we would make our rugby players more relatable to Irish fans. Our web film gives a rare glimpse into the upbringings of Rory Best, Tadhg Furlong, Conor Murray and Tiernan O’Halloran, showing how, like all of us, their surroundings have defined who they are as people – and who they are is how they play.
We worked directly with the players to ensure the scenes we shot were based on real events, and family members featured in the ads – while also evoking universal childhood memories for Irish viewers. In order to make a compelling piece of film that spans three decades and all four provinces in Ireland, our production and creative teams worked closely with DOP Grimm Vandekerckhove, Director Hadi and Butter – along with three crews over three days – to deliver footage that matched the scale and emotion of our platform.
