Budweiser Dream Goal

A truly authentic branded content ad campaign, effectively reaching football fans.

The campaign ‘Budweiser Dream Goal’ was created to give the greatest amateur goals – which are never seen – a huge platform to be discussed, loved, shared and celebrated, joining together the passion of grassroots football fans.

With a three-year FA Cup sponsorship ending, Budweiser needed to maintain and grow their association with football in the UK in a new and innovative way, tapping into the passion points of football at all levels of the game.

Our audience research showed that 89% of Sky Sports viewers participated in grassroots football, and it is reported that Sunday League football now has more than two million players throughout the UK.

Through social media, amateur football continues to build its profile, amongst a mass audience. With an ever growing trend of amateur football moments being shared on the likes of Facebook and Twitter, Sky Media and Budweiser identified the perfect opportunity to launch and activate a truly authentic brand campaign – engaging audiences across Sky Sports’ TV, digital and social channels.

To engage with the Sky Sports audience in a unique way, Sky Media and Budweiser, alongside Vizeum and Anomaly, devised a concept for bespoke content to underpin the campaign. The idea behind ‘Budweiser’s Dream Goal’ was to capture and share the passion, banter, joy and agony of the unseen amateurs, who are addicted to the beautiful game.

Sky’s in-house production would create and produce a branded ad campaign calling for all amateur footballers to submit their best goals for top sporting talent to analyse and broadcast on the big screen.  Key Sky Sporting talent including Ed Chamberlin, Jamie Redknapp, Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher would give the submitted goals the professional treatment that amateurs can only dream of, through TV airtime, digital media and social channels.

Shortlisted entries would be judged, with the winning goal receiving the ultimate VIP treatment of their ‘dream goal’ being aired as a TV hero commercial, during the half time break of the final day of the Premier League season, complete with commentary from the legendary Martin Tyler!

The campaign kicked-off with a 30 second branded content advert on TV, aired across a wide variety of channels, encouraging amateur football fans to “send in their screamers” to win the ultimate prize. Fans were directed to submit their ‘dream goals’ via a specially created branded hub on the Sky Sports website or via the Sky Sports Score Centre App.

Top pundits Jamie Redknapp and Jamie Carragher featured in the adverts, analysing amateur goals with the same incisive critical nous that they deploy with the pros in front of the nation across TV, digital and social channels. To add to the full authenticity of the partnership, Sky Sports Saturday Night Football studio was redesigned to create the Budweiser’s Dream Goal studio with Sky’s replica, graphics and analysis techniques.

Following the launch, weekly updates were created and broadcasted, showcasing the best goals submitted to date, and encouraged more entries, building suspense and counting down to the big finale and prize winner. Sky Sports.com also followed the story and clips throughout the campaign as true editorial – beyond native, featuring behind the scenes filming of the day, expert punditry and of course the weekly entries, all hosted on a branded hub.

Sky Sports owned Twitter/YouTube/Facebook channels further supported the weekly activity, to encourage entries, and to celebrate some of the best goals received. Sky Sports Snapchat Discover was also used as a platform to disseminate Dream Goal content onto and ensure maximum reach and engagement.

Drawing closer to the end of the Premier League season, shortlisted entries were judged via Sky Sports experts and seeded on air via branded content. The ultimate ‘dram goal’ was chosen and the winner was awarded with their ‘screamer’ being analysed on air by talent, and broadcast via a bespoke TV hero commercial in the break of the final game of the Premier League season. Additionally, an extended 90 second version was made available, exclusively, on SkySports.com.

“This is one of the most successful Budweiser UK campaigns ever. We tapped into an extremely powerful insight and delivered a brilliantly executed campaign that will be talked about by fans for years.”

Andre Finamore, Senior Brand Manager at Budweiser