2. Awards & Education;

Create a piece of communication that celebrates the 20th Anniversary of Sports Interactive, the studio creators behind the Football Manager series


Background

Sports Interactive are the creators of the modern day Football Manager game series, and original creators of the Championship Manager series.

After more than a decade of success with their original creation, in 2004 Sports Interactive signed a deal with publishers SEGA. Though the Championship Manager name stayed with the previous publishers, the world famous database stayed with Sports Interactive, who purchased the Football Manager name, and the game retained Sports Interactive’s successful formula.

Football Manager is an annual gaming phenomena and is the world’s best-selling and most awarded football management sim. The game releases on PC/Mac annually and is available both as a boxed product and a digital download.  Football Manager Handheld, a bite sized edition of the PC version, suited to handheld formats, is also released on PSP and ios systems.

The PC game sells approximately 900k copies per year of which 45% are sold within the UK, and is the 3rd most successful PC brand in Europe.
 
The game itself is the most in depth, realistic football management simulation that exists with over 360k players and staff in game, and is the world’s 2nd biggest scouting database including clubs such as Everton FC!

Sports Interactive are a multi award-winning studio, picking up awards from BAFTA, Golden Joysticks, Develop, MCV and Indin as well as various awards from magazines and websites around the world for their work on one of sport’s most successful franchises.

In addition Sports Interactive have been the main club sponsors of AFC Wimbledon since their inception and also have sponsorship deals with Luton Town (Youth team) and Watford FC (Harefield Academy).
 

The challenge

Sports Interactive will be celebrating their 20th Anniversary during 2012. The opportunity is to create a piece of communication that celebrates, or is inspired by, this anniversary and that could be utilised throughout the year of 2012.

This is a very open creative brief and you can respond in any medium (or combination of media) you wish, including (but not limited to) video, print, audio and online. The communication you produce should celebrate the 20th Anniversary of Sports Interactive - the creators of the Football Manager product - not the product itself without any reference to Sports Interactive.

Target Audience

There are 2 key audiences that we would like to be taken into account throughout the brief with either one or both being considered for the communication.

1) Classic Football manager fans who are long term fans of the series:

Football Manager has one of the strongest, loyal and active communities in video gaming. They also have a nostalgic emotion towards the brand and for many FM was an inherent part of their youth culture.

The official Football Manager Facebook group has over 350k members and over 30k followers on twitter. The official website gets over 1 million hits a month at launch. In addition to this there are hundreds of unofficial sites and forums dedicated to the Football Manager series. The typical FM fan is male aged between 16 – 34.

2) Football fans in general and football fanatics.

They will consume football through TV, Radio, on line, mobile and going to live games. As gamers they will play FIFA, Pro Evo and other sports titles, as well as fantasy football and match predictors. They will reference football topics via social media networks. The majority of the audience will be aware of Sports Interactive and the Football Manager brand, although not all will have played the management simulation. This is a perfect opportunity for us to widen appeal through celebrating the success of the studio in their 20th anniversary year.    

Mandatories

Please include Sports Interactive and SEGA logos on any piece of communication. These can be found in the brief’s project pack.

Legal mandatories

Due to the nature of the product there are some legal mandatories that must be adhered to. These are as listed below:

• The term ‘Championship Manager’ should not be used or referenced in any materials.
• The ‘Premier League’, Inc. logo, trademarks or any association with should not be used in any materials.
• Individual Premier League team names or nicknames (e.g Arsenal or The Gunners) should not be referenced in any materials.
• Individual player names or player imagery from any professional football league should not be referenced in any materials.
• Individual names of any real life football managers should not be referenced in any materials.
• References to or imagery of any real life football stadiums should not be referenced to in any materials.

Deliverables, Artwork and Additional Information

For guidance on how to submit your work please adhere to the main deliverables information in the Student Awards section of the YCN website. Any additional supporting information referenced in the brief can be found in the supporting project pack.

Illustration by Jack Hughes