- December 15, 2015
- 0
- Email This Post
- Print This Post
Fans’ Touching Tweets Bring Hard-Hitting Champ to Tears
Clobbering UFC bantamweight champ Ronda Rousey in the face won’t make her cry. Opponents have tried it for years.
But softly tugging at her heart strings apparently will.
That’s what millions of Rousey’s fans, and her sponsor, Reebok, learned from a three-day Twitter campaign hashtagged #MoreThanTape.
Queen of the Octagon
UFC is the Ultimate Fighting Championship, a US-based organization that bills itself as “the largest mixed martial arts promotion company in the world.” Rousey made her UFC debut in 2013 and has reigned as undisputed champ in the 125-135 lb. weight class ever since.
The UFC’s most dominant and bankable fighter–of either sex–Rousey’s raw, take-no-prisoners style drew this comparison from tough-guy action-movie icon, Arnold Schwarzenegger. “She’s like a female Terminator…relentless. She shows no mercy. No pain. No remorse. No pity.”
Tale of the Tape
To encourage Rousey while training for her recent title defense against Holly Holm, Reebok invited fans to Tweet personal messages to the champ, which were printed onto the Rousey’s hand wraps, and gifted to her at training camp. Wraps, which are fashioned from stout, sticky athletic tape, protect hands and wrists while punching by aligning joints and compressing soft tissue. To Rousey, they’re more than a mere precaution.
Source of Motivation
“Hand wraps mean more to me than to other fighters,” she told FOXSports. “Each ball of tape I create after a training session equates to a day of hard work, and another step toward achieving my goals as a fighter and a human [being].” Having fans’ sentiments printed on something so close to her heart “is really inspirational and means an incredible amount,” she said.
How deeply would fans’ adoration touch Rousey? Judge for yourself at about the 27:35 mark of this video, where the merciless one appears genuinely moved.
Results
Integrated marketers will be interested to know that in less than 72 hours, Reebok’s Twitter outreach reached 155 million people on Twitter, garnering some 3000 inspirational messages for Rousey.
The Instagram campaign announcement was Reebok’s top post during the quarter, with almost 14,000 likes. #MoreThanTape is but one tactic in a larger effort that has, as this article reveals, netted Reebok 8000 percent social media growth in the past 18 months.
Despite fans’ heartfelt urgings, Rousey lost the November 14th contest after being knocked out in the second round.
Still, we think Reebok’s Twitter campaign worked because it was a highly creative, brand-appropriate use of social media. It facilitated an authentic emotional connection between Rousey and her fans, who jumped at the opportunity to personally touch and inspire their champion.
Witness another brand making authentic emotional connections in this Christmas Miracle post, or discover powerful new social marketing ideas in our social media archive.
