Conor McGregor plays the Irish card as well as anyone else and is genuine about it.
The same could be said of Paddy Power who wear their green heritage with pride. Imagine then what went through the minds of McGregor’s people and he himself at the weigh-in for the Mayweather fight last month when the ‘other half’ of the biggest fight promotion in history stripped down to reveal Paddy Power lucky pants.
“That moment was probably the greatest relief of my life,” said Paul Mallon, Paddy Power’s Head of Major Brand Activations sitting down over coffee in a glass meeting room at Paddy Power’s HQ in Clonskeagh, Dublin.
“We had been thinking a lot about a deal with Conor McGregor but despite our best intentions, we weren’t able to make anything happen.
“There’s a US company which is part of the Paddy Power Betfair group, called Draft, and they were over in Dublin doing meet and greets and we got bouncing ideas around.”
“It came up in conversation that they do social media work with Mayweather and the question popped into my head as to whether they thought there was any chance he would wear some Paddy Power lucky pants for the weigh in, putting an interesting twist on proceedings and being less obvious.
“The Draft guys went back to his team and very quickly it emerged that Mayweather would be interested. Like within a couple of days it became very exciting very quickly.”
“We started to flesh out elements of the deal and despite being reassured in every call with the agents you’re never absolutely sure it’s going to happen, especially with an athlete at this level.
“The week of the fight we flew to Vegas on Sunday night and we were supposed to meet Mayweather at 11am on Monday to film some bits and handover a selection of lucky pants for him to decide which ones he liked best.
“Then we got a call to say he was doing yoga instead, had a doctor’s appointment, and then had family commitments. The meeting was pushed back to Tuesday, then it was going to be at his gym, then it was going to be in his house where we could do some filming.”
“None of that had happened by 10pm on the Tuesday night and we were beginning to freak out a bit but then word came through that it was on and we were going to meet at his Gentleman’s Club ‘Girl Collection’.”
“We were hanging around there for a couple of hours, just Paddy, myself and our head of video production Robin Marks. It was pretty surreal but we were there working, really, ready to meet one of the most famous sporting stars on the planet so that kept us focused. Eventually we were ushered into a small office out the back and there he was.”
“He stood up, looked at us and said, ‘OK you guys are Paddy Power, with the pants, for the weigh-in’ and that was the first we absolutely knew for sure he was up for this.”
“We had carried caseloads of Paddy Power lucky pants over with us in our luggage, different shapes and styles including the original Bendtner style y-fronts. Due to the short lead times each pair was individually handmade with ‘always bet on black’ worked into the seam at the agent’s request.”
“They cost around €3,000 each to get made and we eventually laid out four before him and he said ‘Love them, let’s do this.’
“There was a real nervous energy about him ahead of the fight. This wasn’t sitting around having a cup of tea or anything.”
“He’s a real fist bump rather than handshake kind of guy. He was there with James McNair his business manager and Connor Kroll, another of his sports marketing advisors who helped architect the deal.”
“We read through some scripts we had been working on but they didn’t really land well with him and then he just got up we started filming and he just did these pieces to camera just rolling with it.”
“We left him with four pairs of the pants, in sealed Ikea ziplock bags and that was it, time to wait and see if this was really going to happen.”
“The deal was staggered financially as certain requirements needed to be met. That included social media activity on his channels, Facebook and Twitter, right down to visibility of the lucky pants on the stage so that they could be clearly seen on camera, not hidden by scales or anything so everybody knew what had to happen.”
“The exposure live on the Friday night and then on repeat was on a scale we had never seen. Between live TV and social, there were tens of millions of views. You know something is a hit when the ladies at your creche tell you about it on Monday morning (and that they had a cheeky fiver on McGregor).
“When it happened, when I saw the sliver of green and knew we were on that was the most satisfying moment of my career.”
“We were already ahead of the game because we had already paid out to early Mayweather backers and he mentioned that in the video piece, saying here are these Irish guys who believe in me.”
“The bulk of the money was on McGregor. But we live in a world where logic isn’t best mates with the world and that kind of fuelled the turnover.”
“We blew any turnover forecasts for the fight out of the water so from a business perspective it was a job well done. This project was a huge departure for us in terms of major brand activations too, as there were about 40 people involved in making in happen, from digital marketing through retail and product, so it was hugely collaborative with massive amounts of trust – and it paid off.
“In terms of social media we had the Paddy Power team on the ground too for the week in Vegas, but we knew if they were having to push anything Mayweather-related too hard, it that it wouldn’t have worked as we had hoped. But it just took off.”
“The social team was doing their own stuff, as usual, based on learnings they had done to WrestleMania earlier in the year but our view was that if you’ve done something that creates cut through it will catch fire within minutes.”
“In terms of the Mayweather project, we did a detailed risk analysis, as with every stunt. We had expected a medium level of abuse about being a proud Irish company but going against McGregor but while there were a few keyboard warriors having a go there was actually very few that deleted the app or anything like that. We did notice lots of snake emoijis.
“We looked at security around Dublin in the betting shops, or for Paddy on the ground in Vegas, but smart people, as our customers are, got why we had done it, and it was fine.”
“Conor was here in our offices in 2013 before he became the superstar he is but we couldn’t make a deal then and while we have tried down the years it’s likely that the money is bananas now and you’d never be able to get the access you’d need to make it work. I massively respect the way he markets himself and love the anarchy he brings to sports and news.
“Never say never but I’m not waiting on a call.”
The offices of Paddy Power in Clonskeagh are a long way from strip clubs in Vegas but it takes all sorts to make marketing magic and this was exactly that.
Sure it won’t be to everyone’s taste but it takes all sorts to make up the rich tapestry of how we entertain ourselves. This was a moment that will be remembered long beyond any individual punch that was thrown or insult that was hurled in the build up.
Paul Mallon made that happen and that is something he can be proud of.
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