ABOUT

BACKGROUND
We were asked to help Rightmove to increase awareness of its commercial property proposition.

The site famed for selling houses wanted to increase the number of people buying business premises on the platform.

We didn’t need a strategy to make commercial property a national talking point through mainstream media. We needed a miracle.

It just so happened that we found one.

A hero with a story so compelling that we realised that he might be the man to convince business owners to take the plunge and click “buy” on Rightmove.

THE IDEA
Step forwards “Chief Belief Officer,” Rob Smethurst, owner of Macclesfield F.C.

We discovered that Rob had bought the club’s stadium on Rightmove late one night. From there he had rebuilt the club from the ground-up, making it central to its local community along the way.

What’s more, Macclesfield F.C. had a big match on the cards – against FA Cup holders Crystal Palace. So we signed Rob up and believed …

The miracle
Macclesfield F.C. were drawn against Crystal Palace, themselves giant killers and holders of the FA Cup. Having spotted Rob we partnered-up with him in the hope that we could capitalise on the appearance of his club in the world’s oldest football tournament.

It got better than that. Macclesfield pulled off the win of the year, beating Palace and going through to face more Premier League competition.

Going official
From there we worked with Rob as his club prepared to face Premier League club Brentford.

Three days ahead of the game we unveiled Rob Smethurst as Rightmove’s Chief Belief Officer – a role in which he would give the nation’s budding businesspeople the belief they needed to take the plunge and look for premises on the site.

We created social assets, we recorded interviews with every major sports journalist, we created the visuals that we knew would capture the imagination and tell the Rightmove story.

Then we went to town across the media ahead of the big game, securing another raft of media from the sports segments of the major national broadcasters to the back pages of the tabloids to the sports sections of the quality press.

Rob became a digital media sensation as his story caught fire across the social platforms as the football publishers ran his tale in the lead-up to the match.

RESULTS
The campaign took Rightmove decisively out of its traditional property and news media heartlands.

From a double-page spread in the Daily Star, the back page of the Mirror Football supplement to the cover of Daily Express’ “Fever Pitch.” Sky Sports ran live interviews and TNT Sports took the brand to 92 million homes.

There were over 185 pieces of editorial reaching 54.2 million (87%) of our audience 2.9 times. 100% of coverage was positive. 97% of editorial pieces included campaign visual assets with Rightmove branding. 99% included key brand messaging around belief and the “believe it” platform.

Broadcast TV coverage reached 18.5 million consumers thanks to the live FA Cup coverage which featured the brand across BBC and TNT Sports. There was 42 million reach through online news coverage while social coverage reached an audience of over 110 million.