Water technology company Xylem has teamed up with Manchester City for a multimedia campaign to educate football fans on the risks posed by water complacency.
The campaign, developed by agency Lagardère Plus, has been launched with a video called ‘The Changing Room’. The video – created by the agency’s subsidiary Brave – features Manchester City players Sergio Agüero, David Silva, and Ilkay Gündoğan. The footballers are filmed in the Man City changing rooms experiencing an augmented reality projection of the future landscape if water issues continue. These risks include lack of access to clean drinking water and resilience challenges in the face of increasing severe weather patterns, which will affect all countries.
Man City partnership is a ‘unique opportunity’
The campaign – called ‘Closer To Home’ will also include Manchester City Women’s team and fellow City Football Group team New York City, who will discuss water challenges in their home countries. Behind-the-scenes content has also been created to provide the audience with water solving tips.
Declan Garvin, business director at Brave, said: “By using complex projection animation, we have been able to transport viewers from the City dressing room into multiple geographies to learn about the water challenges faced. This is a multifaceted issues and the story will evolve to delve deeper into the challenges faced in specific countries – using City’s famous players as the storytellers. We look forward to monitoring the reaction of fans to the campaign in the coming months.”
Joseph Vesey, CMO at Xylem, also said the support from the sports teams had given the company a unique opportunity to reach millions of fans around the world and inform more people of the urgent issues that affect us all.
The UN estimates 3.6 billion people – almost half the global population – live in areas that are potentially water scarce one month per year. It also predict by 2050 more than five billion people could suffer water shortages due to climate change, increased demand and polluted supplies.
Manchester City has previously worked on B2B campaigns. In 2017, they teamed up with Wix.com to launch an SME-targeted campaign.
