Castle Lite:
Rugby World Cup Sevens
RUGBY WORLD CUP SEVEN’S – Castle Lite, Global Partner
The Rugby World Cup Sevens was played over three days at the Cape Town Stadium from 9 – 11 September 2022, featuring 24 men’s teams and 16 women’s teams from around the world.
Ahead of the tournament, global partner Castle Lite turned to Octagon to provide all event management services for their activations within the stadium and at the official fan village. In addition, Octagon was tasked with the management of their hospitality facilities for their VIP guests.
Professional sport is taken very seriously and no sport more so than rugby. The reality is, that rugby sevens supporters have a more playful feel than 15-man rugby. Castle Lite wanted us to engage with these fans (who are not just rugby fans), where we could be less serious and focus on the “liter” side of sport and amplify the enjoyment that fans got out of attending the event. Castle Lite’s goal was to be the unofficial sponsor of the fans and ensure that all fans and their VIP guests had the best experience they’ve ever had in and around sevens. Octagon’s brief was to deliver an exceptional experience.
Our approach to achieve this was to “own the fun” and provide plenty of it. We did this in the stadium by hosting daily fancy-dress fan competitions that were featured on the stadium’s big screens, and then encouraged all fans in the stadium to vote for the best-dressed fans of the day. The activation area on the podium allowed fans to dress up, accessorize, and post videos on various social media platforms, which was incredibly well received. At the fan village we ‘unlocked’ the fun with various competitions and DJ’s, bands that not only played during the tournament, but long after the full-time whistle had blown too. In the VIP area, we had daily appearances by legends of the game as well as current tournament players. Such memorable moments were enhanced with various photo opportunities with players as well as the official trophies for the tournament – for both men’s and woman’s World Cup Sevens. We didn’t forget the fans at home or in the bars in and around Cape Town watching the event, with various promotions and competitions, that included winning tickets to the event and various VIP experiences.
The end result was that we enabled Castle Lite to achieve all of their objectives, including:
- Primary objective: To be the most talked about brand at the RWC 7’s, which was achieved with a SOV Reach of 153.74m (560% increase).
- Additional objectives:
- To land our point of differentiation we used #LiteSideOf7s on X/Twitter, which led to nearly 70 million impressions on the platform.
- Turn Cape Town blue – driving volume in the stadium and across Cape Town (achieved 53% of total volume).
Octagon was recognised for the work executed on this project by winning the Sports Industry “Campaign of the Year” Award for the best sports marketing campaign in South Africa in 2022. This is the most prestigious award for sports marketing in the South African market.
