Y&R London Connects Premier League Stars With Primary Schools in First National Ad Campaign

The Premier League has chosen to showcase their community programme Premier League Primary Stars in their first ever ad campaign. The free curriculum-linked teaching resource for parents, teachers and pupils aged 5-11 features top footballers and mangers including Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne, Chelsea’s Gary Cahill, Tottenham Hotspur’s Eric Dier, Liverpool’s Sadio Mané, Manchester United’s Juan Mata and José Mourinho, and Arsenal’s Theo Walcott. The Premier League players join primary school children in their classrooms demonstrating how learning with football can be fun, to the emotive words of T.H. Palmer’s poem “Try, Try Again”.

The ads for Premier League Primary Stars, which aims to support 10,000 primary schools by 2019, will air across television, press, cinemas and social media and digital channels from Sunday 2 April. The first television airing will be between 7-8pm on Sunday 2 April during the final of The Voice on ITV.

Richard Masters, Managing Director at the Premier League said: “The campaign highlights the vast amount of work being delivered by professional football clubs in their local communities. Our goal is to connect the Premier League to the heart of the community, namely families and schools, to promote learning and fitness to children and tangibly demonstrate the benefits of football in all aspects of life.”

Jon Sharpe, CEO Y&R London added: “Y&R London is delighted to launch the Premier League’s inaugural integrated advertising campaign after winning the business in a hard-fought pitch last year. The campaign emotively highlights the key role the Premier League plays in communities across Britain and the transformative power of their Primary Stars initiative”.

The integrated campaign created by Y&R London includes 60” and 30” films directed by Vince Squibb and produced by Gorgeous. An online content series, also produced by Gorgeous brings to life the inspiring reality of Premier League Primary Stars lessons and their impact on the children who take part and will be distributed across VOD, digital and social media.

The T.H. Palmer poem was selected as it perfectly encapsulates the idea of resilience, a key pillar of the Primary Stars programmes Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE) resources, which also focus on equality, team work and fair play.