Specsavers Breaths New Life into Grassroots Football Team with Harry Redknapp

Specsavers teams up with Harry Redknapp to breathe new life into a struggling grassroots football club as part of its earned-first consumer campaign, Specsavers’ Best Worst Team.  

The high street optical and audiology brand – known for its award-winning reactive social media strategy in the football space – brings back its Best Worst Team campaign following a successful pilot last year with former professional footballer Jimmy Bullard. The activation focuses on investing in an underfunded area of sport that relies heavily on excellent sight and hearing – grassroots football. 

This year’s supercharged campaign, which is supported by media, launched in July with a call out for entries. Almost 2,000 grassroots teams from across the UK applied. The chosen team, Swansea-based Cwm Albion, was then revealed in November in the first of eight fly-on-the-wall documentary-style episodes - all hosted on Specsavers' dedicated Best Worst Team YouTube channel. 

Over the coming months, the team will be taken on a journey-of-a-lifetime with invaluable support by one of the most recognisable and charismatic managers of the Premier League era, Harry Redknapp, and money-can't-buy experiences usually reserved for only elite players and clubs. 

The series is being narrated by former England international and Queen of the I’m A Celebrity jungle, Jill Scott MBE, who since retiring, has taken the TV and punditry world by storm. 

The campaign creative concept was developed by Tangerine, with media strategy and execution by Golin and Freshwater. To elevate it this year, Specsavers is also partnering with Copa 90 - a leading digital football platform. The partnership will help Specsavers build better, more meaningful connections with audiences and take the brand into new, exciting and innovative spaces. As well as hosting the eight episodes on its own YouTube channel, Copa is also creating bespoke content over the course of the season for its social media followers.  

The Best Worst Team campaign sees the support of influencers Chunkz and Elz the Witch, who are creating unique content on their YouTube and TikTok channels in order to reach new audiences and encourage more people to follow the team’s journey.   

Specsavers is also working with Manning Gottlieb to help drive reach and awareness, giving the team some footballing fame and creating buzz and talkability through out of home activations, including giant murals and projections in their hometown and wider Wales.  

Lisa Hale, head of consumer PR, social media and brand activation at Specsavers, says, "For decades, Specsavers has celebrated and made heroes of those who really ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’. This year, we wanted to take our commitment to celebrating those human moments to the next level, by investing in an underfunded area of culture which relies heavily on excellent sight and hearing - grassroots football. 

"We are delighted to announce Harry Redknapp as the team’s celebrity coach who brings unparalleled experience to help transform the worst performing team into hopefully one of the best. Working with influencers Chunkz and Elz the Witch, we hope to reach new audiences with this campaign and encourage more people to follow the team’s incredible journey.” 

Martin Kevill, creative director at Tangerine, comments, "With a little support from VAR, we’ve helped Specsavers build quite the bond with football fans on social media over the past five years, and it’s so exciting to be able to take this authority and tell a heart-warming, grassroots story with the greatest subjects we could’ve wished for in Cwm Albion. 

"There is obviously a strong Should’ve Gone to Specsavers message here, but this year’s Best Worst Team aims to celebrate a football club that has been going for over 100 years with an inspiring commitment to community. It’s also going to be great fun working with Harry, Jill and the boys. Let’s leave Cwm Albion with something to cherish forever."