Issue: SKY wanted to extend the appeal and reach of its well-loved television advertising character Gunnery Sergeant Cleaver beyond the commercials. At the same time they wanted to communicate that SKY Sport is the official broadcaster of RWC 2011 and the only channel showing all 48 games live.
Idea: Convert the SKY Sport Facebook page into a full throttle Gunnery Sergeant Cleaver base camp where he would update his soldiers on RWC 2011 news, respond to any queries 24/7 and encourage fans to take part in tactical challenges to win game tickets and more. Essentially, we needed to make people believe they were talking directly to Sergeant Cleaver.
Impact: Fans were excited to discover their favourite character was a real life Sergeant who ordered them around, punished them with sit-up reps and worked to get them Match Fit just like the ads. Having a Mango voice behind the Facebook page was critical in ensuring comments were tailored in line with SKYs key messages and issues were managed smoothly. At the start of the campaign SKYs Facebook page was at 75 fans. After one Match Fit Challenge it grew to 7,000 and today the Facebook fanbase is over 30,000.
