Activating in Asia with AIA Korea and Spurs

In July, Tottenham Hotspur went to Korea on their first overseas tour since 2019. While there, they played two fixtures, against the K League All-Star and Sevilla, and took part in a whole program of community and commercial activities. Title Sponsor AIA have a major presence in Korea, so they took the opportunity to activate on the rare occasion the team were in market. Of course, Spurs have Korean superstar Son in the team too, and as an AIA Brand Ambassador, this opened many unique opportunities for the business to leverage this opportunity.

The power of Son in Korea cannot be underestimated – he is idolized by all demographics, so we took this opportunity with AIA Korea to bring the partnership to life while Son and the team were in town.

After the team arrived to a raucous welcome at Seoul’s airport, the first AIA activation was a press conference with a twist – children were invited to ask questions, which led to fun and authentic answers with the players. In the evening, 100 VIP guests were invited to an open training session with the team, followed by a signing session (which started very late due to coach Antonio Conte’s brutal training regime).

The following activation was the most eagerly anticipated – a meet-and-greet with the whole squad for VIPs. Guests had their chance to meet all the players and have photos with them, AIA being the only partner to get access to this asset. However, the most exciting opportunity for AIA Korea took place the next day, when Son visited their office in Korea, much to the delight of employees who got to take a group photo with him on their roof.

Throughout the tour, we ran competitions and campaigns with AIA Korea, which led to direct business impact – generating over 80,000 leads for sales agents to follow-up. As a challenger brand in Korea, this tour delivered a lasting impact and has shown AIA Korea the power of the partnership in all they do.

To cap off their activities, AIA Korea launched ‘AI Sonny’ at halftime of the first game – see the video here.