Metzelder brothers, Höwedes and Pinto root for Haltern
Germany’s most successful talent forger in amateur football launches first advertising and sponsoring campaign in team history
Scholz & Friends NRW
9/21/2009, Haltern am See - his little club has made it big. The football team TuS Haltern, which plays in the Bezirksliga regional league, is getting professional marketing help: last year Christoph Metzelder, a defender for top Spanish team Real Madrid, began supporting his home team, which – with the Metzelder brothers, Benedikt Höwedes and Sergio Pinto – has bred four professional footballers in the past few years. To ensure that the club from Westphalia’s communications are also good enough to play in the big league, it has teamed up with Scholz & Friends NRW to develop an advertising and sponsoring campaign with the motto “Tu’s Haltern!” (“Let’s Go Haltern!”).
Five ad motifs, a new internet site and fan pages on Facebook make it clear that TuS Haltern has got big plans both on and off the pitch this season. To demonstrate this, the campaign does not merely focus on the club’s former members turned professionals, but rather on the team itself, which holds its own on the Stauseekampfbahn field come rain or shine. Headlines such as “Haltern is on a lake. Made by our opponents’ tears”, “You can leave Haltern with Souvenirs. But not with points” or “There’s no industry in Haltern. All we churn out are goals” reflect the club’s self-confidence and link it to the special characteristics of the lake town on the outskirts of the Münsterland.
Christoph Metzelder states: “Now that certain improvements have been made in regard to the quality of training and infrastructure, it is only logical that the next step deal with the way this is presented to the public. We are delighted to see this campaign launched, which will attract interest far beyond the city limits. I would especially like to thank Scholz & Friends as well as Carsten Sander and his photography team for supporting the club in this great venture.”
Raphael Brinkert, Managing Director of Scholz & Friends NRW, adds: “The campaign 'Tu’s Haltern' can be considered the high-publicity spearhead of the club’s transformation process with the clear objective of getting sponsors and talented players to commit to the the team as well as boosting its appeal within all age groups. We are pleased to be able to make a small contribution to the creation of this outstanding foundation for Haltern’s future success – whether in the starting team or in training the pros of tomorrow.”
The campaign motifs currently appear in local newspapers, on large-scale posters and in the magazines of the region’s top Bundesliga teams. Additionally, the campaign will be topped off by a new internet blog and a making-of film as well as social media activities such as the Facebook fan and club pages, which allow players, officials and fans alike to post their own videos, entries and comments. The first game analyses and project videos can already be viewed at http://www.tus-haltern.de and http://www.facebook.com.
TuS Haltern was founded in 1882. In cultivating four of today’s pro footballers – the U21 European champion Benedikt Höwedes (Schalke 04), the world and European runner-up Christoph Metzelder (Real Madrid) as well as Malte Metzelder (FC Ingolstadt) and Sergio Pinto (Hannover 96) – the club can be regarded as Germany’s most successful talent forger in amateur football. Together with his own team of helpers, Christoph Metzelder began supporting his home club last year with the intent of helping the regional team to more professional structures. Improvements in infrastructure, the quality of training and equipment as well as in coaching certification/licences are intended to help the team attract and support new talents consistently.
Scholz & Friends NRW was founded on 1 January 2009 in Düsseldorf and is a 100% subsidiary of the Scholz & Friends Group, Germany’s largest independent group of agencies. The agency in NRW began by servicing clients such as Vodafone, the German Football League (DFL), the Ministry of Economic Affairs of North Rhine-Westphalia, NRW.Invest and the NRW cancer society.
Client: Turn- und Sportverein Haltern e.V.
1. Chairman: Robert Krolik
Head of Football: Ronald Schulz
Marketing: Hans-Jörg Zech, Zecco Sportvermarktung
Financing, Football: Thomas Belting
Marketing Officers: Silke Hundgebuth, Sven Hozjak
Agency: Scholz & Friends NRW
Managing Directors: Niels Alzen, Raphael Brinkert
Art: Christof Deutscher, Mario Zaradic
Text: Florian Schneider, Grischa Mentgen
Consulting: Janine Hardich
Social media: Kevin G.M. Baltruweit, Martin Szymanski
Corporate Broadcasting: Marc Lerche
Photographer: Carsten Sander
Post-production: Carsten Clask
Press contact
Markus Mayr Ronald Schulz
Tel +49-40/3 76 81-115 Tel +49-151/25 33 31 71
Mobile +49-151/16 16 51 52 ronald.schulz@tus-haltern.de
Fax +49-40/3 76 81-320 http://tus-haltern.de
pr@s-f.com
http://www.s-f.com