Björn Borg | Björn Borg Party Training

Insight

Björn Borg is Swedish for “David”.

The sportswear category is dominated with brands like Nike and Adidas, world-renowned titans of both the category and marketing. Björn Borg also makes sportswear, but it has established itself primarily for its line of underwear. Unfortunately for Björn Borg, a trend of personal training has swept through its core markets and the hype and pretentiousness behind these global giants of sportswear came along with it.

Björn Borg was set up for a David vs. Goliath clash against these sportswear makers in its own backyard, but these global giants sell performance and winning for a living and aren’t used to losing. They play a game where the odds are in their favour. But as they invaded Björn Borg’s territory, Starcom Mediavest Group wanted to show them that Björn Borg sportswear plays something different altogether.

Strategy

Choice: “Winning” or “Winning and Looking Good”.

The goal most people have when they train or work out is to look good – a trim physique and big muscles are more attractive than the alternative. They’re trying to impress others outside of the gym and while they’re at the gym as well. Having the right swag and fit of apparel is as essential as knowing the latest exercises and dietary supplements. But Björn Borg, with its heritage from sport, knows that although the clothes are essential it’s the psychology of how you feel that’s even more important.

These people have a separate goal than just trying to win, so SMG wanted to make Björn Borg sportswear stand for something else besides coming out on top and created the idea of “party training.”

Working out requires people to have free time which can also be spent enjoying oneself as well. Essentially, “Should I train or should I party?” It created true value and empowered them to do both.

Execution

What You’re Really Training For: To Party

The agency teamed up with online party and training enthusiast Ron Allen to create the world's first Party Trainer. It wanted people to realise that their real motivation for training is to look good when you go out to have fun with others.

To show its new sportswear collection in a cool way across all markets, SMG made the Björn Borg Tumblr page the hub for Party Training. It created a series of instructional videos of Ron Allen instructing people in how to Party Train — dressed in Björn Borg sportswear, of course. Tumblr even helped to re-skin the page and loved the design so much that the brand was able to editorially promote its videos on its home page.

With Björn Borg’s devoted fans ready and willing to spread the message, SMG created a way to let them create gifs of their Party Training by using LoopCam. This smart phone application captures and makes moveable images allowed fans to share their personal Party Training routine with one click to the Party Training hub. The reward? A chance to win a Party Training for a full year and a collection of the new Björn Borg sportswear.

Results

Under assault from the Goliaths of the sportswear industry, Björn Borg proved that Party Training was the way to go, with sales skyrocketing over 25% internationally.

Virally, it generated over 2.5 million views of the instructional videos and over 60,000 unique visitors to the Party Training tumblr page.

The Party Training moves have been shared more than 40,000 times on Tumblr. And, it received enormous press coverage, equal to €350,000 ($479,000) in its target communities (fitness, fashion, gay, students).

Most importantly, people are having more fun combining partying and training.

BRAND:

Björn Borg

CATEGORIES:

Accessories/Clothing/Footwear

Sport/Leisure

REGION:

Europe

DATE:

October - December 2012

AGENCY:

Starcom Mediavest

MEDIA CHANNEL:

Digital,Online