The LA Galaxy have more competition for the brand on the horizon. With an expansion MLS team coming and at least one, if not two NFL franchises joining the massive media market, the residents of the StubHub Center will continue to look for ways to stay as involved and active in Southern California as they have been in recent years.
One of the key ways to stay involved is cohesive brand integration, and by delivering a well-coordinated campaign across all platforms, and dropping in a national creative PR campaign on top, the Galaxy continue to find ways to stay brand relevant as things get a little more involved off the pitch in the coming years.
For 2016, as MLS season gets ready to roll, we took a look at the Galaxy’s latest campaign, with all the pieces that will make it roll and help keep the club top of mind with a wide audience.
LA Galaxy – #ThisIsLA
In an effort to tell a broader story and to show the club’s longstanding connection with the city of Los Angeles, the LA Galaxy put together a cohesive 2016 marketing campaign that features traditional, non-traditional, digital storytelling and an all-encompassing jersey launch to help drive awareness and engagement ahead of the start of the 2016 MLS season. Utilizing lifestyle photography, the LA Galaxy captured a number of its marquee players, Academy and alumni throughout various parts of Los Angeles.
Concept: LA is impossible to define. It is a metropolis made up of a hundred different villages that grew into each other. It is Beverly Hills. It is South Central. It is Downtown. It is the South Bay. It is Long Beach. It is Inland Empire. It is American. It is European. It is Hispanic. It is Asian. It is rich. It is poor. It is transient. It has hometown pride. It is everything. The LA Galaxy is Los Angeles’ soccer club because it is made up of all these different elements. The players, supporters and staff come from all of these different parts of the varied tapestry of Los Angeles. A wide range of people travel from all across Southern California and when they come together at the StubHub Center, they become the LA Galaxy. They become LA. Taking a lyric from a supporters’ song that is sung in the stadium, “This is LA” looks to showcase all of the diverse parts that make up the LA Galaxy.
Behind the scenes: The LA Galaxy did 15 different photo shoots over the course of two months to capture all facets of the LA Galaxy in and around Los Angeles. From LA Galaxy Academy high school, to Captain Robbie Keane and through alumnus Landon Donovan, the club captured each player in a unique setting in Los Angeles. They utilized our crew of talented photographers – Robert Mora, Hana Asano and Jon Lorentz to capture the stunning images and complemented each shoot with video elements captured by the LA Galaxy video team lead by Albert Lanzillo.
Out of Home: The Galaxy are running a comprehensive Southern California outdoor takeover campaign running Monday, February 4 through our Opening night on Sunday, March 6. The out of home campaign will focus on branding and game specific advertising. The branding boards will consist of static locations (bulletins, posters, and transit shelters) with digital focusing on game specific advertising. The full takeover remains in marketing through early May. The outdoor campaign features 171 pieces of creative targeting areas from the South Bay and Downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica and Orange County and well beyond.
Non-traditional: The LA Galaxy placed grassroots wheat paste (branded posters) campaigns in 40 locations to support each hot zone and to provide a non-traditional look at the lifestyle photography that is at the core of the #ThisIsLA campaign.
Jersey Launch: The Galaxy partnered with adidas to build out a pop-up shop, art installation in DTLA. Activation included the look and feel of the This is LA campaign, including artistic photo images and jerseys for sale. Over 1,000 visited the #ThisIsLA pop-up shop from Thursday, Feb. 4 through Saturday, Feb. 7 and over 800 people arrived for a three hour autograph session on Saturday, Feb. 6 featuring Steven Gerrard, Robbie Keane and Giovani dos Santos.
Digital Storytelling:
#ThisIsLA has had over 100,000 engagements on twitter. Additionally, they worked with MLS digital to build out innovative commercial call-outs within the article itself.
All LA Galaxy players have pushed out their photo shoots with the hashtag #ThisIsLA.
Now of course brand relevance also comes with success on the field. However for areas that are controllable, the Galaxy strategic marketing and communications deserves a look, for creativity, activation and consistency, areas which sometimes get waylaid in team planning. It certainly isn’t always easy to agree and execute, but as the season starts L.A. appears to have scored on all levels.
