New Ulm, Minn. — The Archery Trade Association (ATA) is launching an advertising and social campaign to harness and direct surging archery interest among new and young archers prior to the November 22 release of “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.”
The campaign effort will kickoff to leverage the influential, pop culture moment surrounding the movie’s release, while extending beyond the moment to sustain peaked interest and engagement among new archers.
“The commitment we’re making to this campaign is all about seizing a lucrative opportunity and turning this groundswell of interest and curiosity among America’s youth into a vibrant, active community of new archers and bowhunters,” said Jay McAninch, ATA’s president and CEO.
The ATA has contracted with Weber Shandwick, a global public relations firm with offices in major media, business and government capitals around the world. The firm is tasked with executing outcomes defined by the ATA’s Campaign Committee, a group selected specifically to outline the campaign’s purpose and goals, while providing input on best strategies and tactics to reach those goals. The Committee is chaired by Blake Shelby, PSE and coordinated by ATA’s Melinda Gable and includes Samuel Coalson, BOWTECH; Corby Fisher, Easton Technical Products; Randy Phillips, Archery Headquarters; Denise Parker, USA Archery; and Jennifer Mazur, ATA.
The ATA has contracted with Weber Shandwick, a global public relations firm with offices in major media, business and government capitals around the world. The firm is tasked with executing outcomes defined by the ATA’s Campaign Committee, a group selected specifically to outline the campaign’s purpose and goals, while providing input on best strategies and tactics to reach those goals. The Committee is chaired by Blake Shelby, PSE and coordinated by ATA’s Melinda Gable and includes Samuel Coalson, BOWTECH; Corby Fisher, Easton Technical Products; Randy Phillips, Archery Headquarters; Denise Parker, USA Archery; and Jennifer Mazur, ATA.
Just as industry representatives are heavily involved in how the campaign is created and implemented, the advertising effort will also rely on ATA member companies to serve as “campaign ambassadors.” These ambassadors will promote the campaign’s message and brand by supplementing existing product marketing and advertising materials with the campaign mark and slogan. Companies will also be asked to participate in online sweepstakes and promotions directly and to help recruit celebrities and VIP’s to become campaign advocates and spokespersons.
“Everyone involved in developing this campaign felt it was really critical to reach those outside of our traditional market space, while still getting that message to those groups in our natural market space as well,” said Shelby “We want (Weber Shandwick) to do what they do best, which is leverage this mainstream moment when archery is buzzing and reach that teen market that’s so fired up about archery, but we need our industry companies too. The “campaign ambassador” piece of this effort sort of formalizes our industry’s mentality that it’s ‘all systems go.’”
Samuel Coalson of BOWTECH emphasized the urgency of the effort, “let’s grab the attention of each kid who’s suddenly eager to shoot a bow through every means at our disposal and do it in a way that’s timely,” he said. “We want to harness hype when there’s hype there to harness. And that’s right now.”
The New York Times said the current surge in archery interest is bigger and longer lasting than any interest before. “The Hunger Games” is credited with making archery hip, especially to teenage girls, who frequently turn up for lessons in variations of heroine Katniss Everdeen’s side-braid hairstyle. Everdeen is the central character in “The Hunger Games” trilogy.
The ATA’s campaign targets teens and preteens, ages 11-16 years old, with an emphasis on reaching girls. Portions of the campaign will have a national reach, while other elements will focus on select regions of the country, allowing for high frequency and greater message saturation. The campaign will create an active, online community through social engagement, bolstered with paid media buys and timely media pitches.
For more information, contact Melinda Gable at melindagable@archerytrade.org or by phone at (202) 302-4794. The ATA will also soon post an in-depth, campaign brief on archerytrade.org detailing the “hows” and “whys” of the campaign strategy. This includes a deeper look at motives and how the campaign defines its method, target audience, measurements and conversions.
Originally published by Archery Trade Association
Published on BassPro1Source.com with permission from ATA
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