As captain of the South African team, Temba Bavuma’s name is never far from the heated cricket conversations that go around the media, social media and around the office watercooler.
Our historical insight show that the South African cricket fan has a tendency to criticize our players, rather than get behind them – and with this comes the predictable tags.
In the lead-up to the 2023 Cricket World Cup, New Balance wanted to change this. By spotlighting that negativity comes from the uninformed.
In a bold move, New Balance chose to face the critics of Temba and the South African team front on and turn the historical World Cup tags traditionally given into ones of positivity, encouragement and hope.
By leveraging their player sponsorship we were able to participate and influence the hype of the Cricket World Cup by creating a content piece that hit South African sports fans right in the heart.
Temba was involved in the creative execution from the start. We included him in various discussions and brainstorms before the script and the storyboard were created. He wanted this to be a true story of who he is and what he feels.
Then we asked him to publish it first, without paid support just before the Proteas embarked on India.
+1.1M people reached
+2.4M organic video views
