Strategy:

The MTN Backyard Series website is part of an integrated campaign whose objective is to stimulate South Africa’s love affair with garden cricket, but essentially cricket in general, which MTN supports. The website is a central hub for player interaction, a repository for multi-media content and gives guidance to all the social media outlets for the campaign. Our goal was to help revive the nostalgia of playing cricket in your garden or road outside your house. While other aspects of the campaign would drive the traditional game such as branded tennis balls being thrown into backyards, our strategy was to encourage online plays of a simulated game. By using Facebook, an email campaign as well as You Tube the public was given various potential touch points to become familiar with the Campaign.

Creative:

The site was conceptualised and designed to visually portray a scrap book featuring collective garden cricket memories of yesteryear. The scrapbook comes to life through interviews and soundbites of South African cricket legends talking about the game. It also features various Back Yard and street configurations for the game to be played. Users can also define their own configurations and system for the allocation of points. The site evolved into a social hub for many users, who could create their own garden and set their own rules before challenging their mates to a game. The website contained multiple levels of content and various Easter eggs (hidden content) that could be unlocked by hitting 6’s in certain areas of the game or by completing other tasks.