Qantas Michael Clarke

Ambassador Michael Clarke surprises protégé Tom Kelaart

To leverage Michael Clarke’s ambassadorship while he was still captain of the Australian Cricket team. Qantas had hitherto not utilised Michael Clarke and his ambassadorship and was looking for a creative way to do so.

Boatshed Media was briefed by the Qantas social media team to produce a video capturing Michael Clarke surprising a promising young cricketer at his home in Alice Springs.

The brief included all creative direction, scripting and delivery of the
finished video which was all developed by Boatshed Media.

A key aspect of this campaign was developing a strategy that would bring to life a story of an extremely well-known Australian surprising a very shy 12-year old.

Core to the strategy was to capture an authentic reaction and excitement generated by not only Michael’s visit to young cricketer Tom, but the presentation of a free trip for Tom and his family to Lords to watch the Ashes.

Online video can only be successful when a commercial message is presented in a way that is relevant to the brand and is sincere.

This was Boatshed Media’s goal in going to great lengths to quite literally hide Michael Clarke from Tom and indeed the media in Alice Springs in order to capture Tom’s authentic reaction when surprised in his own backyard.

Being able to incorporate Qantas brand in a seamless fashion with the presentation of a novelty ticket to Tom in front of his peers again resulted in an authentic reaction and a heart-warming video which resonated with its audience and showed off the stunning backdrop of the location.

The final video gained more than 650 shares on Facebook, almost 30,000 views making it one of the most engaging pieces of content on Qantas’ social media platforms. The video was so popular Boatshed Media was subsequently engaged to produce a follow-up video of Tom and his family visiting Lords in London as Michael Clarke’s guests.

The video was also used as in-flight content for UK and Australia routes.