Today, New Balance Football launches their global ‘Beware the Lion’ brand campaign featuring footballer Sadio Mané. The campaign aims to drive widespread awareness of New Balance’s unique relationship with one of the World’s best players. The campaign has been created with ZAK – The Next Gen creative agency.
The campaign is created to elevate the characteristics of Sadio Mané that make him the intimidating attacking player that arguably every defender in the world fears when they play against him, whilst also highlighting Mané’s own relentless ambition to continually improve his game, despite reaching the impressive heights of Ballon D’Or nominee, AFCON player of the year, Golden Boot winner, Champion’s League winner and now Premier League winner.
The campaign also utilises Mané’s own brandmark, a Lion icon with a golden mane, which was designed by the New Balance team in collaboration with Mané. Elements of gold are used throughout the imposing visuals to highlight Mané’s unique hairstyle and the gold colour is also applied to his eyes to represent the spirit of the lion, the national symbol of Senegal, living within him.
The assets will roll out globally, going live across social and digital channels, and featuring throughout the city of Liverpool at over 10 OOH prominent sites.
Nicola Jones, Global Senior Marketing Manager for New Balance Football said “Sadio is unrivalled on the pitch and after an incredible year, we wanted to show the world that Sadio is more determined than ever to push for more success. Sadio’s won individual awards and team trophies, but that only drives him forward. Beware The Lion celebrates the incredible hunger that motivates a winner like Sadio to never stop.”
Matt Bennett, CCO ZAK, “ Sadio is a one-off, we wanted to create something unique to him, that captures his personality. Whilst everyone knows he’s a humble man, he is also one of the most fearsome players in World football and this campaign is designed to manifest his menacing, aggressive and ambitious streak. He has this burning hunger which drives him to improve, to become even faster and more deadly on the pitch, this campaign is designed to show the world the real Sadio Mané.”