Irish agency behind Usain Bolt TV ad

IRISH ADVERTISING agency Boys and Girls is the creative force behind Digicel’s Olympic attempts to “leverage” its sponsorship of Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. Boys and Girls won the Caribbean telecoms operator as a client after it proposed a campaign encouraging Bolt’s fans to “join the Run to London”.

Call-to-action videos starring Bolt and transmitted to Digicel customers via Facebook, YouTube and Twitter asked “everyday people” to send in photographs of themselves running. There was just one rule – they couldn’t replicate Bolt’s trademark “lightning” pose.

This “virtual casting call” generated 36,000 responses, according to Boys and Girls. As a user-generated campaign, it was not without its logistical challenges, with 26 countries and multiple languages involved.

“We have been working on the campaign since January and the culmination is here as we await Usain’s performance,” says managing partner Pat Stephenson, while creative partner Rory Hamilton describes the campaign in a blog post as “a labour of love”.

In February, Boys and Girls went to Jamaica to film two TV ads for Digicel (owned by Denis O’Brien). Now on air, they feature dozens of the user-generated images, which then merge into footage of Bolt running on the grounds of his old school Jamaica College. The agency has also created large-scale print and online adverts with the strapline “be extraordinary”.