Activation · Cause · 2020
Paddy Power × Missing People × Motherwell FC
Missing Fans.
The Silhouette Stand.
During the pandemic, football fans weren't just missing from the home end. They were missing from home, too. With the charity Missing People, we filled Motherwell's South Stand with 1,190 blank silhouettes: stand-ins for the thousands of people who go missing in the UK every month.
- 1,190Blank silhouettes in Motherwell's South Stand, in place of cheering cut-outs
- 35People reported missing in the UK in the time it takes to watch a football match
- 650Paddy Power stores carrying posters of missing people last seen in each store's area
- £150,000Flutter Entertainment's follow-on donation to Missing People across the next 12 months
Sources: Paddy Power News · Missing People · iGB · Motherwell FC.
The brief
A pandemic. Empty stadiums. Cardboard fans everywhere.
Football in 2020 was strange. Stadiums emptied overnight. To fill the gap, clubs across Europe sold fan-shaped cardboard cut-outs by the seat: smiling supporters, pets in scarves, mascots in shirts. A way for the absent fans to be present, sort of, and a way for the cameras to have something to point at.
Paddy Power didn't need to do another version of that. The cardboard-cut-out trope was already loud and already crowded: we wanted to invert it to have proper meaning.
The idea
Not a cut-out. A silhouette.
Fans missing from football was an oddity. Fans missing from home is a tragedy. We took the same cardboard format the rest of the sport was using and stripped the face off it.
No smile, no scarf, no cartoon. Just the outline.
One stand of silhouettes, in place of one stand of supporters, for the thousands of people missing from their families across the UK. Paddy Power partnered with the charity Missing People, and with Motherwell FC, who agreed to host the install at Fir Park.
We had worked with Motherwell the previous summer, through our Save Our Shirt campaign, and this follow-up proved the value of consistency: Save Our Shirt was mentioned in almost every press hit, not as a distraction, but as a validation of the actvation.
The execution
One stand at Fir Park. 650 shop windows across the UK.
On Saturday 8 August 2020, Motherwell opened their Scottish Premiership season at home to Dundee United. Behind one of the goals, in Fir Park's South Stand, 1,190 blank black silhouettes sat where the home end should have been. They stayed there until fans returned.
Outside the ground, the campaign kept going. Paddy Power's 650 UK stores became local search hubs: each shop's window carried posters of people who'd gone missing nearby, with the Missing People helpline number (116 000) on every one.
A highly visible and needed opportunity for families across the UK to raise awareness of their missing loved one — at a time when it is so hard to search due to Covid-19 restrictions.
What happened next
A one-stand activation that turned into a £150,000 partnership.
The activation could have lived for a single news cycle. Instead, it set up a year-long partnership. In June 2021, Flutter Entertainment — Paddy Power's parent group — announced #TogetherForMissing, a £150,000 donation to the charity across the following 12 months, with reach across Paddy Power, Betfair, Sky Bet and PokerStars UK.
Paddy Power ambassador and ex-England striker Peter Crouch fronted the launch film below. A Father's Day activation from PokerStars followed.
Press
A quiet idea that travelled.
What the press said
-
"Sometimes people like it when brands do A Good Thing."
PR Week -
"Motherwell and Paddy Power launch missing people campaign with silhouette-filled stand."
Daily Record -
"Paddy Power launches Missing People campaign with Motherwell."
iGaming Business -
"Paddy Power has managed to build a sustained relationship within the football fanbase."
Insider Sport
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