Zurich Ireland’s sponsor Tackle Your Feelings (“TYF”), a community initiative of Rugby Players Ireland (the national players association) that leverages the players’ standing in the community to promote mental wellbeing in the wider population.
Known for their tenacity on the pitch, our campaign strategy and communication centres on leveraging the profile of Ireland’s players showing that if they proactively #TakeControl of their mental wellbeing others should too. 25 of Ireland’s 120 professional players opted to lend their profiles and their stories to the campaign sharing tips, techniques and insights across owned, paid and earned channels.
Employing OOH, media outreach and digital content at key points in the rugby calendar we maximised the power of the player platform delivering reach in excess of 50 million.
The campaign is underpinned by Zurich’s TYF App, a free repository and support tool for taking control of your mental wellbeing.
A schools wellbeing programme has also been developed in recognition of the positive impact the players could have on a younger cohort.
Identifying an opportunity to lend support in the face of the pandemic, we used the players’ experience of the unprecedented halt and then their return to work to support the wider public in this shared experience. We celebrated the return to rugby by creating “Gogglebox” content with former players providing insight into how they deal with the pressures of performing in public.
Such has been the impact of TYF that Zurich now support a similar programme in Australia with the AFLPA. There has also been benefits for the Zurich, enjoying a 34 RNPS with those aware of TYF as opposed to 5 with those unaware.
