Carling To Heavily Push Digital Marketing At Final

In an exclusive interview with Sportindustry.biz, Rob Hollis, brand manager at Carling, has revealed that the beer brand is investing heavily in digital marketing for this Sunday’s Carling Cup Final at Wembley between Manchester United and Aston Villa.

‘This year we are pushing it as the first digital final – giving fans the opportunity to become really involved in the game with the digital role of honour (100 fans’ names screened around the stadium when the winning captain lifts the trophy), and using Twitter with screens in the ground and in Wembley way showing various supporters tweets,’ said Hollis.

Carling is also allowing a third of its pitch-side advertising space at Wembley Stadium to fans’ messages, which must be submitted to the Carling website before the match.

The Molson Coors-owned lager brand aims to get fans talking about the game on the social networking site by using the hash tag #CCF10 and submitting their comments to @thecarlingcup.

The initiative has been created with Carling’s advertising agency Beattie McGuinness Bungay that also developed the ‘fan-o-meter’ at last year’s Final which measured the noise each set of fans made during the match.

The match sees Aston Villa take on Manchester United and fans will be able to choose some of the songs played during the post-match celebrations by voting from a shortlist on the Carling website.

Carling is also offering one hundred supporters the chance to have their names displayed on advertising boards around the stadium when the trophy is lifted – by interacting with Twitter.

Carling, which has sponsored the tournament since 2003, will donate £1 to the Bobby Moore Fund for Cancer Research UK for every message submitted in an effort to encourage fans to get involved.

Click here to read the full interview with Rob Hollis.