Episode 101 - Decathlon x Zwift The Breakaway Ad Reviewed By Dark Horses, Goodfellas Pizza, Ecologi and The Liberty Guild

This campaign looked to give incarcerated people the chance to reconnect with the society they will be rejoining via the medium of virtual cycle racing.

Watch this week’s episode of Advertisers Watching Ads to hear the views of Ausura Eccleston (Strategist at Dark Horses), Sam Dolan (Head of Marketing at Goodfellas Pizza), Adam Boita (CMO at Ecologi) and Jon Williams (Founder and CEO of the Liberty Guild).



Episode 101 - Decathlon x Zwift The Breakaway Ad Reviewed By Dark Horses, Goodfellas Pizza, Ecologi and The Liberty Guild

Transcription (this is fully automated, so is a representation of what was said)

Tom Ollerton 0:00

Hello, and welcome to advertisers watching ads. This is a show where brands watch other brands ads, discuss what's good and bad about them.

This week, we're brought to you by our partners contagious who've helped choose the ad this week. But before we get to that ad, let's meet this week's guests.

Samantha Dolan 0:24

I'm Sam Dolan, I'm the Head of Marketing at Goodfellas pizza.

Ausura Eccleston 0:29

I'm a strategist at dark horses. And He specialises in sports marketing.

Adam Boita 0:34

And I'm Adam Boita, CMO at Ecology one of the UK’s leading climate action brands.

Jon Williams 0:38

I'm John Williams, founder and chief exec at the Liberty guild.

Tom Ollerton 0:42

What a panel thanks so much for joining us today. So today's is quite an old one. And we've got a couple of different brands, Tech brands and sports clothing brands, doing a collaboration with some prisoners. So let's see that

Tom Ollerton 2:57

so what is customary? Is that your vote for how good you thought this activation was so 123

Jon Williams 3:08

and I've been nice

Tom Ollerton 3:09

to did this campaign.

Samantha Dolan 3:11

strike a chord with you. I'd spend a lot of my time as a marketeer. Looking at advertising that isn't brave it isn't single minded. It isn't necessarily associated to the brand but it's on trend for whatever the thing of the moment is and this for me ticked all those boxes are all about making sport accessible where mental health is top of everyone's agenda as they put a mental health screen on it arguably that's the one bit that felt like a bit of a tick box at the end to me they could have maybe integrated that a little bit more I really liked it I thought it was it was single minded it added eight I had an emotional benefit attached to it which we know consumers love. I guess there will always be consumers who will say well you know why he's chucking all that money behind prisoners but then that's the bravery behind it for me that that's the kind of love it or hate it element which which would make it cut through

Ausura Eccleston 4:00

I think it's a great ad to be honest, I think it's very emotional. I can't think of you know, people disagreeing with this sort of in the sense that you know, shouldn't be spending money on prisoners in that way because I think it's you know, to give them redemption and sort of reputation is really important for humanity. Give it

Jon Williams 4:15

a lot of money to prisons, so that prisoners can can start to feel more integrated in society is a great and noble thing. And this I just worry the reason behind it. Was it done because they wanted to generate to genuinely help prisoners or was it done because they wanted to get a goal clear for PR

Adam Boita 4:35

when I first saw the other thought, why is it with the castle and and why is it not swift just doing this? So there's no doubt that this is an AR dunwell It's driven by purpose. It's lifting people out of society and rehabilitating them so that's, you know, it's got a great angle. I just wonder with this where they take the next or what's the integration piece behind it. So for example, did they have the exact same kit in the store so I went online couldn't find it is every sale of that purchase? kill a kid going to go towards global prison systems and rehabbing which

Jon Williams 5:03

would be great, something you genuinely integrated purpose into it if you're going to do it, do it properly and do it in a way that really makes a big difference what a brilliant point Adam,

Adam Boita 5:14

it's got you got to take it to its natural logical conclusion for full integrity and full trust, not just some superficial piece think it

Samantha Dolan 5:22

would be great if they followed it up with the shirts are available this much. But you know, really kind of followed it through and a made a long term commitment. You know, in previous roles, I've done a lot of work with charity, and the worst thing you can do is do it for a year and then start off. Because that just shows kind of how disingenuous it was in the first place. It was back to John's point all about making the money and not that you really believe not that it wasn't purpose led at that point it was sales lead,

Tom Ollerton 5:48

anyone who's cool actually genuinely believe that this is changing anyone's lives other than directly the people who sat on those bikes,

Ausura Eccleston 5:55

you know, personal campaigns, you know, should be, you know, sort of fully integrated into the company into the business. But for me, I feel that, you know, being able to directly help the six prisoners, I think there was six of them. I think that's a lot enough itself. Personally, I thought that, you know, being able to directly publish things, people as a company, and things are good sort of foreshadowing for what's to come kind of thing. And I think if the broader mission is to make sports accessible, then it doesn't have to just be focused on prisoners, it could, you know, touch minority backgrounds and touch disadvantaged communities. And they could like, do it in many different shapes and forms. As long as you know, the call message or strategy is, you know, making sport more accessible,

Adam Boita 6:35

I think, I think you've got to get people to benefit the day, I think the intent is definitely there. And I think better this than just another pilot higher, sell it, sell it low, kind of typical promo advertising this bank holiday weekend, I think it is brave for brand like that, to do something out. It's totally up character to what we perceive to catch on to be, and maybe this is the first pivot out. So I always give people the benefit of the doubt, and hopefully that they get a follow up with some some more of this kind of stuff.

Samantha Dolan 7:00

I think that their timing is spot on as well. I think there's a real challenge for brands with the cost of living crisis, right about defining their value outside of price. I think the timing of this, then recognising that actually putting an emotional benefit behind our brand is one way of defining value and keeping them in is pretty clever.

Ausura Eccleston 7:19

You know, we've seen a lot of sort of purpose led campaigns in recent years. And I think for me, this is an example of how to do it, right? And it's the product is, it's not so shoehorned in, it's very much important. It's part of the story. It serves a purpose.

Tom Ollerton 7:34

John, what's your view around Zwift? You know, there's people who can afford that and do that and enjoy that in their, in their spare room in the house, they've got a, like an E cycling rig set up. And people are at the other complete other end of the ladder where they've got to rehabilitate, come back into society struggle or get a job. So do you find any tension? There

Jon Williams 7:56

was a huge question. I mean, I knew nothing about Swift. I'm obviously not target audience. There's a barrier to entry there. If you you know if this is to help to make the brand more inclusive, I suppose. And to the start of a social purpose thing. It's like, it's like AR VR, it will be great when it's mass, and this isn't maths. So I've created juries for donkey's years, and I've got a huge sort of cynical filter, you can make films, brilliant and social purpose has been sweeping through award shows for years. And if they all did what they said they were going to do, we would we would live in the fluffy, utopian, glorious place with no domestic violence and that kind of bent. So I'm trying to get over that and open my heart to the possibilities here.

Adam Boita 8:46

Do you think there's also the opportunity, it feels as though is to Caslon and Swift is just the facilitator. I would have loved to have seen something around swift about you know, just that point. If this is about inequality or rehabilitation, there must be X amount of miles cycled by all this with community like is it as if community cycle X amount of miles to Catalin will give X amount of, you know, promotional discounts to local schools or other communities that need it? I think they've kind of missed a trick here



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