It was David Bradley who famously told us that “footballers are like actors” as he narrated Aston Villa’s ‘140 years’ video celebrating the club’s illustrious history.
And with the Movie Poster theme of 2017/18, he was proven right!
The club’s push for promotion that season received the Hollywood treatment as the media and content team launched classic Movie Blockbuster posters to promo the games.
Taking inspiration from classic and famous films, I set about giving them a claret and blue twist.
Instead of ET, there was JT. Rather than Ocean’s 11, there was Bruce’s 11. And replacing the Godfather was the Snodfather.
It all formed part of the media and content team’s strategy that aimed to supercharge the club’s standing – and, importantly, help increase commercial numbers for individual games.
Previous seasons had seen use of the standard ‘graphic + link’ approach on social media.
In other words, across all platforms, the club promoted games via a match image usually featuring the crests of both teams, some generic ‘don’t miss the game’ wording plus a link to buy either tickets or hospitality.
For this particular season, the creative Movie Poster campaign offered a fun and innovative approach, centring around universally recognisable films and, therefore, boosting interest around each fixture – and, vitally, increasing sales figures, too.
This really felt like the media and content team were at the forefront with a disruptive style.
It’s also one that has been echoed by many sports outlets since – most recently Sporf who introduced the Last 16 Champions League competitors this way.
Of course, this approach continued the following season.
Instead of Movie Posters, 2018/19 saw the media and content team switch to Music CDs.
Again, this strategy worked well, with interest yet again increasing.
Paul Brown 
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