The Good, the Bad and the Not-so-great of 2024 sport online

In this Member’s Insight piece, Arc & Foundry’s director David Granger writes how it has been another great year for sports activation. From the Olympics in Paris to the Euros in soccer to the kings of sporting reality TV, we’ve not been short of great events, partnerships and documentaries to promote via digital and social. Look no further if you need a handy guide to what went down. Here’s our of the year – acknowledging the good the bad and the did-that-really-get-signed-off of 2024…

The Best Partner Announcement Video

Williams F1 team might not have had the greatest season on the track this year, but one thing they did win was our first award. The Argentine e-commerce company Mercado Libre’s announcement video using (Argentine) driver Franco Colapinto was appropriate, timely and – a rarity for sponsor films – funny. The team did however let 

themselves down slightly with the pictures which accompanied the story that Gulf’s Reviva was their Official Coffee Partner. Drivers are great at driving. Drivers as models drinking coffee? Not so much.

Best Rapper at the Olympics Award 

In a tight, two-horse race with Snoop Dogg, it was arguably Public Enemy’s hypeman, and global treasure Flavor Flav who took gold, swapping polemic for water polo, attending the US women’s matches and becoming one of their financial backers. Which made for great pictures, great reaction on social and a great result for the team.

The Put It In The Louvre Award

The brilliant ArtButMakeItSports continued to turn out great works of social media by pairing and comparing sports images with classical art. It’s bringing a touch of high culture to sports photography and a few laughs. And, you get double kudos points for naming the original artist and their work. Find the pics and the paintings they inspired here 

The ‘Is That It?’ Damp Squib Award

While it was far from the worst reveal of the year, given the noise and hype surrounding HP becoming the Ferrari F1 team’s title sponsor, the big Miami reveal felt a bit flat. And, if ever there was a team associated with a primary colour, it’s Ferrari. Adding blue to the palette to placate the new sponsor and then dressing them up as “Azzurro La Plata” and “Azzurro Dino” felt as if the Scuderia was clarifying just a little too much. 

The Internet Sleuths Are Go Award

Compare and contrast HP on Ferrari with the genius Peroni 0.0 announcement: simple video, clean image and firing the starting pistol on an internet conspiracy theory. On the classic racing car pictured was the number 44… Lewis Hamilton’s race number. The Peroni deal broke cover January 30, a full three days before Hamilton broke his own news that he was leaving Mercedes to drive for Ferrari. Was it an easter egg? A clever leak? No. The car in the ad was a model of Maurice Trintignant’s Ferrari 625 car in which he won the 1955 Monaco GP.

The Back to Grassroots Shirt Reveal Award

As other leagues are fiercely debating the rules of financial ownership, it’s good to see Torquay United celebrating its own with its third shirt release. All the individual investors of the TUST’s Community Share Issue have their names woven into the fabric. The release was announced with a great video shot at the seaside home of the English National League South side with some of those loyal fans. That’s how to do kit launches. 

Best Activation of the Year (…might be the decade)

Who’d have thought that the best activation of the year would have been a locally focused disruptive campaign for the Australian carshare arm of Uber and that Valtteri Bottas, the Finnish Stake F1 driver would be its understated, deadpan star? Well, the mullet may have given it away. It (the ad, not the haircut) caught your attention, it was funny, it cut through a lot of noise and shows that a little bit of humour goes a long way. Check out the video and HP take note.

Did we miss any? What were your best (and not-so-best) digital activations of the year? And what is next year going to bring? 

David Granger is a director of Arc & Foundry content marketing agency.