Streaming shuttlecocks at first ever digital badminton festival

The world’s first digital badminton festival, ARCFEST, was aired this week across YouTube, Instagram and Spotify. 

Created by Japanese sports brand Yonex and their long-standing agency partner monopo London, the online festival took place on October 3 to 7. Over the week, content was shared to stages including Badminton history on Yonex’s Instagram channels, Badminton tips via YouTube influencers, ‘Get in the game’ playlists on a dedicated Spotify-channel dubbed Arcradio, and a signpost to the merch corner along with a giveaway.

The digital campaign embodies aspects of visiting a physical festival, with wristbands, posters and maps, whilst harnessing the bright iconography, language and branding established for the Arcsaber series in earlier campaigns.

It featured high profile athletes delivering unique content about the new Arcsaber 7 racquet. monopo London designed the stage maps and merchandise to drive excitement, shareability and engagement over the festival. 

“With previous campaigns, we focused mainly on print and film executional launches with posters, stickers and merch,” said Mélanie Hubert-Crozet, Co-Founder and Creative Director at monopo London. “This time, we wanted to bring the sport closer to the fans and build deeper connections. ARCFEST is about driving a wider, global appeal to this sport community.”

And in first place…

“We have never seen another badminton brand engaging its community at that level, so when the monopo team developed ARCFEST, we knew we had to be the first,” commented Teagan Pease, Global Social Media Manager, Yonex. 

“Having worked with them multiple times before, I knew that this digital campaign would not only be a fun way to reach the fans, but also a fresh way to elevate our brand further.”

Building on the latest campaign for the launch of Arcsaber 11 (a racquet series which has a unique subculture of fans), monopo wanted to increase the level of engagement within Yonex’s community. 

With the upcoming launch of Arcsaber 7, a new racquet targeted at more intermediate and advanced players, the creative agency focused on concepting an accessible campaign that celebrates the sport and its global sub-community.