Everton and Everton in the Community have been shortlisted for seven prizes at the prestigious 2021 Football Business Awards, with the nominations saluting the Club’s marketing campaigns, partnership activations, digital and social offering, and COVID-19 response.
The life-changing, life-saving service provided by Everton in the Community, the Blues’ official charity, is also acknowledged with its selection in the Best Football Community Scheme and Best Corporate Social Responsibility Scheme categories.
The Football Business Awards, now in its ninth year, rewards and recognises the important role clubs and businesses play in enabling the game to be a success on and off the pitch.
In addition to being up for the two community accolades – which recognise the overall provision of Everton in the Community’s 40+ programmes and the groundbreaking work of The People’s Place mental health campaign - Everton has been put forward in the Best Club Marketing and Best Brand Activation (Premier League) categories for its ‘More Than Eleven’ 2020/21 kit launch with technical partner hummel. The activation included the Club’s third kit being unveiled by players from across Everton’s 20 disability teams and saw all three strips – home, away and third – achieve record sales.
Selection on the Best COVID-19 Community Response (Premier League) shortlist acknowledges Everton’s rapid and extensive reaction to the coronavirus pandemic, which saw more than 30,000 people supported through Blue Family, a coordinated outreach and engagement campaign launched in March 2020, four days before the UK’s first COVID lockdown was announced.
And the unveiling of playmaker James Rodriguez following his September 2020 move from Real Madrid has earned recognition in the Best New Player/Contract Signing Reveal Campaign category, with the Blues also among the contenders for the Best Digital/Social Media Team.
The winners of all the awards will be announced at London's The Brewery on 6 July.
Best Club Marketing Activation AND Best Brand Activation Involving Football - Premier League (‘More Than Eleven’ 2020/21 kit launch)
Everton and technical partner hummel’s 2020/21 kit launch campaign celebrated and embraced the diversity within the Club’s passionate fanbase and promoted equality and inclusion for all. The campaign led to Everton’s best-ever selling home, away and third kits, while the launch of the latter saw members of Everton in the Community’s disability programme become the lead models for the release – an activation that earned global coverage.
Best Digital/Social Media Team
During the coronavirus pandemic, Everton’s Digital and Social Media team played a central role in keeping fans around the world connected, and delivering vital health, wellbeing, educational and feel-good resources for the community. From bedtime stories for young Blues read by First-Team and Everton Women players, to workouts delivered by Club coaches, cooking videos from the Club’s executive chef, and even an international virtual music festival, Lockdown Sessions 2020, their tailored content reached millions of people when they needed it most.
Best New Player/Contract Signing/Reveal Campaign (James Rodriguez)
In September 2020, Everton signed Colombia international James Rodriguez, the eighth biggest social media sports star on the planet. Rodriguez’s arrival from Spanish giants Real Madrid presented the Blues with an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate its profile in South and North America and across the globe.
A focus on digital and social, supported by inspiring physical on-the-ground, news-making activations in South America, North America and Europe, amplified the announcement and galvanised Evertonians - old and new - to participate in meaningful and authentic engagement.
From lighting up Bogota’s tallest building in the Club’s royal blue colours and Rodriguez’s number 19 shirt number, to celebrating the playmaker’s capture on billboards in New York City and on Miami beach, one of Everton’s most notable ever signings made waves across the world.
Best Football Community Scheme (Everton in the Community)
Everton in the Community’s groundbreaking work continues to support the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people across Merseyside and the Liverpool City Region and tackles a range of prevalent social issues including mental health, homelessness, poverty, employability and disability. Despite the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, the charity’s 40+ programmes continued to offer life-changing and life-saving support to individuals from primary school age to the most elderly members of the community suffering from social isolation.
Best Corporate Social Responsibility Scheme (‘The People’s Place’, Everton in the Community)
Everton in the Community’s People’s Place campaign will see the charity build and develop a permanent mental health facility in the shadows of Goodison Park. Granted planning permission in May 2020, The People’s Place will promote positive mental health and wellbeing and provide essential support relating to suicide awareness and prevention, with work on the building due to begin in the coming months.
Best COVID-19 Community Response - Premier League (Blue Family)
Following the outbreak of COVID-19 in the UK and with the first national lockdown looming, Everton and Everton in the Community’s Blue Family campaign was launched to immediately provide vital aid and assistance to the most vulnerable and at-risk individuals and families across Liverpool City Region. The speed with which both the Club and its official charity mobilised its coronavirus response to best meet the needs of its fans, participants, and the wider public, has been hailed as leading the way in football. The 2021 Premier League Fan Survey results, revealed in March, showed 91 in every 100 supporters surveyed commended the Club's conduct throughout the pandemic – an approval rating 19 percent higher than the league average.
You can view the full Football Business Awards 2021 shortlist here.
