RFU Play On campaign

Last year, the RFU ran Play, a huge sports recruitment campaign to get more people playing rugby. It apparently worked well enough for them to try something similar this year, the Play On Campaign. I want to like this, normally O2 and the RFU put some good things out. But there are too many niggles and it’s annoying me more than letting me enjoy it.

• the URL for the site is www.playon.com. Unfortunately, someone forgot to configure the DNS correctly, so if you just type in playon.com, which is more and more common, it goes nowhere. (petty, but soooo annoying)
• I seriously don’t get the home page. What is it supposed to be? I lost patience before the end of the ‘dialogue’ which plays across the screen. If I’m going to the site, let me get to the meat of the content, don’t confuse me with what is basically a splash screen. The confusion came from the fact I came to the site from the video, so was expecting to see information about the O2 Scrum on the Beach. That’s hidden behind the ‘events’ page. If you are going to be pushing an event, make sure that it’s easy to find!
• The ‘high’ quality video, The Gods, isn’t. It’s just bigger and pixellated to hell. It opens in a separate pop-up window from the site, so does not look as silly as if you clicked that link). The video is OK but slightly overblown; it features Martin Johnson, Nick Easter, Danny Care and David Strettle, so is going to appeal to rugby followers. Also – video. So why can’t I embed it??? They’ve got images I can grab and download but I can’t share the video to help promote it.
• There’s terms and conditions for a contest that I can find no other reference to – you can win a day with the English Rugby team
• I love the O2 Pathfinder programme, combined with the club search engine. Someone at the clubs to help you find your way when you’re new in the area. That’s actually a big driver for the site, finding new clubs and this practical sponsorship is a perfect way to help people and promote the O2 brand
• The Scrum on the Beach events look fun. Around the country, they’re dragging out the England rugby players to promote the game, giving you the chance to have a bit of fun, win some prizes and grab soem goodies. O2 customers get some VIP treatment as well, an added bonus for them. You have to print out an entry form first – although it’s only available as a Word doc
• There’s another contest to win a tricked-out camper van – you pick a bit of virtual beach and if you get lucky the key’s will be buried there! Just beware of the size of the flash file…which crashed my browser when trying to load.

This is a mixed package; the events and club support is great, I just feel it’s let down by some poor digital work.