Helping WWE retain champion status for Pay Per View TV

Honcho worked with WWE for 5 years, promoting live tours across Europe and Pay Per View TV events like their flagship Wrestlemania.

Using channels like Search, YouTube and Social we helped raise awareness across EMEA in multiple languages and formats.

Helping WWE retain champion status for Pay Per View TV

THE CHALLENGE

WWE WrestleMania is one of the biggest sports entertainment events in the world. This global event is broadcast in over 135 countries, and in the UK on Sky Sports box office.

Our job was to get WWE fans engaged in the online conversation, raise awareness and maximise Sky’s Box Office ticket sales. Our primary focus was the UK, as well as most of Europe, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand.

Honchō worked with the WWE team initially for the WrestleMania 29 event. Our success later brought us repeat projects to build on our results with WWE.

OUR STRATEGY

First, we wrestled the big research task and identified storyline awareness and engagement leads to higher buys. This could only be executed by using ALL digital channels, and with careful planning.

We translated and adapted all video and display assets for use across our target countries. This was for all devices, and across all social channels, YouTube, display (premium and programmatic) and PPC channels.

Weighting was biased towards innovative and engaging social advertising campaigns to ensure the vibrant WWE social universe was engaged in the storyline leading up to each event.

Our precise time-sensitive posts across the devices and channels were key to reinforce the local call-to-actions with TV and radio advertising schedules.

A key tactic to our success was re-marketing. Working with WWE year after year meant that to improve, we needed to tap into all customers; past, present, and prospective. We utilised the data of those who were fans of the social pages and had purchased merchandise, knowing that we were targeted a fully engaged and relevant audience.

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THE RESULTS

WWE WrestleMania 29 saw the Rock and take on John Cena in its flagship showdown. It went on to be one of the biggest Wrestlemania's in history and our activity played a major contribution to its success:

800 ads shown over 800 million times to WWE fans
35% increase in Twitter followers
15% increase in online sales YOY
35% improvement on Pay Per View buys

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STRATEGY

First, we wrestled the big research task and identified storyline awareness and engagement leads to higher buys. This could only be executed by using ALL digital channels, and with careful planning.

Weighting was biased towards innovative and engaging social advertising campaigns to ensure the vibrant WWE social universe was engaged in the storyline leading up to the event. We wanted to drum up a buzz for customers before they got to the stadium so we took a comprehensive PPC approach. Our precise time-sensitive posts across the devices and channels were key to reinforce the local call-to-actions with TV and radio advertising schedules.

WrestleMania31’s messaging was deemed to be ‘everywhere’ by WWE fans online, and was one of our most successful years, far exceeding Sky and WWE’s projected sales.

Honcho supported WWE across flagship events Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania alongside multiple European tours. The planning, targeting and execution were exemplary with top results! Happy Sky, Happy WWE!