The International Skating Union (ISU) worked with sports marketing agency Redtorch on #UpAgain, and together created a campaign which is nominated as a finalist of the prestigious The Drum Social Buzz Awards in the Best Travel/Leisure/Sports Social Media Strategy/Campaign category. An acknowledgement from the industry of the impact and relevancy of our joint work. The winners will be announced on November 12, 2020.
The ISU launched #UpAgain in November 2019 to engage and attract fans across all four of its disciplines outside and during event time. An emotive and inspiring campaign based on one simple principle: we must overcome life’s challenges to achieve our full potential. A rallying cry for all skaters and fans, to inspire them to overcome challenges on and off the ice to achieve their potential.
Through powerful messaging, inspiring athlete stories, user generated content and fan competitions, the campaign lifted the community to new heights. When the pandemic hit, events were cancelled and dreams were put on ice, which meant that #UpAgain took on a new and even more important role: to help the community through lockdown.
The campaign was adapted and a program of content was created and designed to help people thrive physically, mentally and emotionally. At a time when our community was being forced to stay apart, #UpAgain brought them closer than ever before.
“It has been a challenging year for everyone, difficult but necessary decisions had to be made, which led to the cancellation of several ISU Events. It was important to find creative ways to show that we stand united as a community and #UpAgain is a simple message that everyone can relate to and get involved in” commented ISU President Jan Dijkema. “We are proud to be nominated as a finalist for The Drum Social Buzz Awards and hope the campaign gets the full recognition it deserves.”
“It’s very exciting that #UpAgain is a finalist of The Drum Awards," said Redtorch CEO, Jonny Murch. “The campaign continues to unite the ice-skating community and has huge potential to help grow the sport as we build towards the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games.”
